This week, we are taking a look at how we can best support students who struggle with word recognition (or sounding words out for reading & spelling).

Research tells us that between 70-80% of students who are struggling with reading specifically struggle with word recognition. In order for these students to read effectively, it is critical that we are able to teach them how to decode and encode. Keep reading to learn how we support this group of students and grab some of our favorite resources!

We know that data and data-driven instruction are CRITICAL to effective intervention so a few weeks ago we asked if you all would be interested in a free training around the subject of taking and using data in your lessons. The response was an overwhelming yes. That’s where “Data-Tracking December” was born. All month long, we will be releasing our data-tracking trainings and want to invite you to take this information (and a free resource - stay tuned next week!) and implement it in your sessions so that you can easily get students the results you have always wanted for them.

While programs can and often will give suggested guidelines on where to start a student, how quickly to move through the program, and how to instruct the material, it is still your space to use clinical/professional judgement and to fill in concepts and review as needed. Trust your intuition - you know your students best!

How’s it going? Hopefully you’re hanging in there with all the craziness going on in the world recently. Today, we wanted to share a quick tip with you on how you can take your reading intervention to the next level for students who need an extra push.

One of the most important things we’ve learned in our intervention time is that you can use ONE activity in a bunch of different ways to target individual student needs and to uplevel your intervention.

Phonological awareness is one of those tasks that many feel is a skill that only primary teachers need to address.

However, for many students who struggle to read or spell with accuracy - a phonological processing issue is at the heart of it.

This means that we need to be explicitly teaching phonological awareness skills until they’re mastered. Now that being said - we need to be thoughtful and strategic in HOW we are doing this.

Check out this week’s intervention tip of the week to learn about how we differentiate for

This week we are talking all about how to effectively measure a student’s phonological awareness ability to track growth over time. It is important that we are monitoring a student’s phonological awareness because it is the foundation of the 5 Core Components of Literacy and must be in place before a student can read and spell with ease!

Phonological awareness is a key foundation for building early reading skills.

It's an umbrella term that essentially refers to the ability to break words into individual sounds, blend sounds to create words (sounding it out), and the ability to manipulate sounds in our language through tasks like rhyming, changing the ending sounds of words or the order of words (like in Pig Latin).

Enhance comprehension beyond simple questions! Learn how to foster deeper understanding through implicit and explicit questioning, vocabulary development, and strategic instruction. Explore methods like Webb’s Depth of Knowledge model and assessment tools to drive meaningful comprehension goals.

Discover the 4 common reasons for breakdowns in reading comprehension! Learn how weak decoding skills, limited background knowledge, inadequate vocabulary, and poorly developed strategies hinder understanding. Explore our blog for effective comprehension strategies and free resources.