The news has been spreading that Lucy Calkins, head of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project (TCRWP), has been learning about the Science of Reading and making changes to her guidance and widely used curricula. Throughout her career, she has often characterized phonics as ‘low-level’ work that should be minimized and has promoted top-down…
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Little things can make a big difference
The education researcher Dylan Wiliam has said, “changing what teachers do is more important than changing what teachers know.” But isn’t knowledge power? And what we do is obviously linked to what we know. So, how can that be? In the past few years, there has been a groundswell of interest in the science of…
Read MoreParents steers school toward Science of Reading
It is so sad when children grow to hate reading as described in the interview linked at the end of this piece. It is uplifting to hear how a parent turned this child’s life around by getting him assessed and starting him on a structured literacy program. But what about less informed or well-to-do parents? How…
Read MoreConsonant blends and consonant teams—what’s the difference?
Many of the terms in phonics are quite confusing. Consonant blends and consonant teams are such terms. So, what is the difference between the two? A consonant blend is a term used for two adjacent consonants in a word that represent two separate sounds. Take the word, ‘blog’: the letters ‘b’ and ‘l’ spell two…
Read MoreHow we can help kids to self-teach themselves to read
Have you ever wondered how kids can read words they haven’t been taught to read? I recently came across the ‘Self Teaching Hypothesis’ Share, 1955. This hypothesis explains how kids use the sounds/spellings they have been taught and apply them to figure out new words. What does this theory say? “According to this hypothesis, beginning…
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