Decades of research has shown that there are five critical areas of reading instruction: phonemic awareness , phonics , fluency , vocabulary and comprehension . When we address these five areas, we are helping students to become fluent and accurate readers who comprehend what they are reading. If
When I first started learning about the Science of Reading, I remember feeling completely overwhelmed by all the different terms. Many of these terms were new to me. The ones I did know I think I used them interchangeably. I thought they basically meant the same thing. (They didn't!) If you
Let me take you back eleven or so years. I was on the phone to my new principal who told me, “You will be teaching Prep”. My initial reaction to this news was “awww". Then, after we hung up, my second reaction was “OK… but how do I teach Prep?” We have all been there at some point! Some of yo
Here is a hard truth. For many years, I basically taught my Preppies to guess, not to read. The reality is that what I learned at uni about how to teach reading, doesn’t work. Back in the day when I wasn’t aware there was anything wrong with what I was doing, I felt pretty good running my guided re
I ran into an acquaintance the other day who also happens to be a Prep teacher. She asked me, “Are you doing lots of work at home?” I shook my head. “No”. She pressed me. “Well, what about your holidays? Were they full on with school work?” Again, I shook my head. I began to feel guilty because I s
Not too long ago, I'd give long lists of high-frequency words to my Preppies, printed on different coloured cards, and say, "Practise these words!" Sound familiar? (Who else remembers those golden words?) In class, we’d practise reading and writing those words in our lessons, and stud
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