The Eclectic Reading Teacher
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3+3 And You Can Read: Easy Comprehension Activities for Families
As a reading specialist and tutor, I make sure that I provide parents with activities they can use with their children to reinforce good reading. It’s very important to provide simple, yet pithy assignments in between sessions so that children are constantly reading. A recent study has shown that in the course of a school … Continue reading
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The much acclaimed comedic documentary Dislecksia will be shown at Mercyhurst University at the Taylor Little Theatre on November 9th at 2:15 pm and 7:15 pm. Check out the links for more information! http://pac.mercyhurst.edu/events2012-2013/on-screen-in-person-dislecksia-the-movie http://dev.dislecksiathemovie.com/
Summer brain drain–it’s real–and for many years, educators have lamented about how much students seem to lose what they have learned in school over the summer–particularly if those students are struggling learners or have a learning disability. It takes about nine months of good instruction to get students where they need to be academically. Now imagine the loss of routine … Continue reading
Sight words are the bane of every early language learner. These sneaky little words often can’t be decoded by using conventional phonics rules or context clues, and they have little or no visual references. Lasty, they are–BORING! Simply put in writing we call these “business words”–they help string our thoughts together in some logical order, but, yet … Continue reading
I’m going to blow my stack … just bear with me. Please fellow teachers, please do NOT teach students that fiction is fake and nonfiction is real. Fiction is STORY and nonfiction is INFORMATIONAL. You see, it’s simple. You can teach the concept of fiction in a variety of ways. For example … you can explain that … Continue reading
Imagine yourself picking up a book called Current Trends In Relativistic Astrophysics: Theoretical, Numerical, Observational, and attempt to read it without any prior background knowledge, education, training, or interest in the subject matter. You start reading it, and, for the most part, you understand the words and how they are strung to together, have some … Continue reading
Fun Flaps, Word Families, K-2, by Immacula Rhodes, Scholastic Publishers I love this book! I just bought it today because it has hands-on activities for word families, and what kid hasn’t made a “fortune-teller” or a Fun Flap as the book calls them. The flaps cover many common word families and a variety of games can … Continue reading
Many times I’ve had teachers say ”Oh Jordan reads perfectly, but he doesn’t understand a darn thing he has read! I’m so frustrated. What should I do?” What they mean is that Jordan’s fluency and decoding skills are fine, but YET he still doesn’t comprehend what he has read. This is not an uncommon problem with dyslexic and non dyslexic readers. They simply are not … Continue reading
Let’s say one of your students is struggling terribly with reading. You know that his reading difficulties exceed the normal day-to-day bumps and potholes that most children face, and this student has not responded to your accommodations and assistance. You’re wondering if you have what it takes to teach a student with reading difficulties … Congratulations for recognizing the problem and realizing that you can’t help this … Continue reading
Phonemic awareness (PA) and phonics are the building blocks of any strong reading program. In fact, research suggests that phonemic awareness is the best single predictor of students’ reading success and is usually learned by the end of first grade (Armstrong, 2003; Cunningham, 2007; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000; Sensenbaugh, 1996). Phonemic awareness … Continue reading
