Guest Post: Welcome April from Chalk Talk!

I have learned so much from Kimberly about working with struggling readers and running guided reading groups so I was extremely honored when she asked me to do a guest post on her blog. 

It was Kimberly’s Virtual Teaching Expo video that actually inspired me to read the book Catching Readers Before They Fall by Pat Johnson and Katie Keier. 

My favorite chapter in the book is called Beyond “Sound it Out”. I am definitely guilty of overusing the phrase “sound it out” when my students get stumped on words they are trying to read when in fact the English language is not consistently phonetic meaning that approximately 40-50% of words cannot be solved by sounding them out. Marie Clay says that sounding words out is not a routine response used by efficient readers therefore asking students to sound words out is oftentimes not helpful or even fair. 

There are so many other strategies out there for problem solving how to read an unknown word that it doesn’t seem logical to continue to support young readers by repeatedly saying “sound it out.”

 Students who take too much time examining every letter of every word read too slowly causing them to lose the meaning of the text they are reading. When children are able to focus on meaning when they read, they are constantly anticipating the next word in the text, while building their fluency at the same time. The goal is to have students focus on the meaning while also checking letters of the words. They need to internalize the questions Does it make sense? Does it sound right? Does it look right? 

Rather than saying “sound it out” here are a few other suggestions for prompting beginning readers… 

Read that again and check to see if this part looks right. (slide your finger under the part you want them to check) 

Run your finger under the word to see if it looks right to you. 

Let the first part of that word help you. 

Try that again from here.

Sometimes the letters don’t help us enough so we have to try something else. Let me show you what I’d do next. 

Try that again and keep the story in your head as you do. 

Let’s get our mouth ready for this word together. 

Look right here at the first letter. That will help you start that word. You got the first part right; now check the ending. 

 How can you fix the last part of that word? 

Try that again but this time touch under the words. 

Do you see a part of this word that looks like another word you know? 

As you work with your struggling readers this school year be on the lookout for a variety of ways to support young children as they build early word solving strategies and learn to read with fluency and comprehension. Happy Reading! 

Virtual Teaching Expo Question and Answer

Welcome! If you're visiting because you attended the Everything's Primary Virtual Teaching Expo, I hope you enjoyed the presentations. If you didn't get a chance to register early for the expo, you can still register and view the presentations (even after the launch date).

The topic of my presentation was helping struggling readers. If you watched my presentation, you may have noticed that I was lookin' a bit like Mr. Ed (he's a talking horse in case you are too young to know him). Ha! I'm normally not so serious, but helping struggling readers is a serious passion of mine. I could talk about it for hours with whoever will listen discuss it with me. A big theme in my presentation (and in my classroom) is repetition. I believe that many of our struggling kids would not be "struggling" for nearly as long if our instruction provided more repetition.

I'll admit that I'm guilty of thinking, "well, we have to move on" or feeling like I might poke my eyeballs out if I have to cover short /a/ word families with a certain child for one more week. Although we all feel pressured by standards, teacher evaluations and things that seem developmentally inappropriate for some of our young learners, the bottom line is that our instruction has to meet each learner where they are in order for them to be successful. That is not an easy task. A friend who teaches foreign language once told me that she has tremendous respect for elementary teachers "because all of the students in her French 3 class are at that level and she never has to figure out how to provide instruction for a French 1 level student in her French 3 class". Finally, someone outside of my world of leveled books, recess boots and matching bins understands a little of what we face each day in the classroom.

For many of our struggling students to have a chance to be successful, the answer is simple (in my opinion)...repetition, repetition and a little more repetition. I think we (including me) often give up something and try something different before we know if the student really just needs more repetition in order to succeed. There are obviously some students who need different instruction or additional services/support, but without trying additional repetition first I think it's hard to know if they really need something different or just more of the same than their peers.

Last summer, I did a couple posts about helping struggling readers. You can read those posts here
and here.  I also hosted a linky party about helping struggling readers this past summer.  You can view the submissions to that linky party here.

Let's get this discussion started...

1. How do you use repetition to support your struggling readers?


2. Do you use volunteers to help you provide repetition for struggling students?

I can't wait to hear about how you use repetition to support your struggling readers!  I'd be happy to answer questions and would be thrilled to have feedback from you. Thanks for visiting today!

Customer Appreciation Sale

I'm grateful for all the followers who have left me such nice comments and sent such nice emails lately.  To show my appreciation and celebrate the launch of the Everything's Primary Virtual Teaching Expo, I'm having a sale!  You can visit either of my shops by clicking on the links in my sidebar.

Tomorrow is a big day!  It's the launch of the Everything's Primary Virtual Teaching Expo.  I'm a featured presenter for this expo.  They even made little old me an official looking logo thingy with my picture on it.  Imagine -ha! Here it is...

It's not too late to purchase a ticket (for only $14.95).  You can watch the presentations at your convenience on your own computer and you'll get a goodie bag full of free digital downloads for registering. 

Join me here tomorrow for a discussion related to my presentation topic - supporting struggling readers!

Everything's Primary Virtual Teaching Expo

It's not too late to register for the Everything's Primary Virtual Teaching Expo!  It's a conference that you don't have to pay hundreds of dollars to attend and you don't even have to travel to enjoy it.  It's the perfect professional development opportunity if you ask me. The expo launches this  Saturday (2/25) and you can view the presentations at your convenience. 

Just can click on the image below to register.

After the expo, you can join me here if you have questions or would like to discuss anything from my presentation.  Hope you'll join us!