Science of Reading Blog

As we continue to honor Black History Month, this week’s Tuesday Teaching Tip examines the relationship between dialect and learning to read. Key take away for teachers: there is no ‘right’ way to speak. 

To honor and celebrate Black History Month, our February Tuesday Teaching Tips posts will be dedicated to deepening our understanding African American English (AAE). African American English is a dialect with a rich history and deliberate origin. Like all dialects, AAE is a valid language system that is rule-governed with many linguistic properties functioning together. All students should be taught the legitimacy and history of their language. Do you know the history of AAE?

It might be overwhelming to consider overhauling everything to create a good structured literacy classroom at once. Instead consider these two tenants: 

1. You can’t change EVERYTHING, but you also can’t make excuses to change NOTHING.
2. Act small, plan big!

Take some time to prioritize what you can change within the next few days, next unit, and next year using a few examples found here.

Data should always be the starting point for diagnostic, prescriptive instruction. Opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning appear daily. Learn about three formative assessment opportunities that can be incorporated into your classroom right away!

Dr. Hollis Scarborough's Reading Rope clearly shows that skilled reading requires reading with increasing automaticity. But throwing students into texts that they’re not equipped to decode accurately does more harm than good. This blog explains the difference between decodable and leveled readers so that teachers make informed decisions that are best for their students.

To meet your goal of being more data-driven and responsive to students’ needs in 2023, consider a simple solution to remaining organized, a data binder, to guide your small group instruction. 

Ring in the New Year with Literacy Best Practices!

The beginning of a new year is always exciting and refreshing. It is truly the perfect time to self-reflect on best practices for a healthier you and making 2023 the best it can be! As an educator, self-reflecting on your classroom practices is worthy of your time, and re-establishing effective practices can be a powerful tool to revive your passion for teaching and maximize your students’ success. Learn three best practices to maximize students' literacy skills.

Have a sound wall, but not sure where to go from there? This week's Tuesday Teaching Tips post focus on ways to support learner with three principles to embed in your sound wall work. Embed these three structured literacy principles into your work to get the most out of your time!

We're sure you’ve heard of the importance of early literacy skills, like developing students’ phonological sensitivity and phonemic awareness abilities. But, accurate production of speech sounds is another indispensable foundational skill that is often overlooked. Today’s focus is on sound production and ways to teach our students this formidable underpinning. Engage in these three tips to start the literacy journey on the right track: Check Your Pronunciations, Clip Those Sounds and Build on What Students Know.

The Research Partnership for Professional Learning recently published a paper that found the most effective teacher training focuses on improving instructional practices in day-to-day practice. At AIM, we echo these sentiments and have developed courses that promote evidence-based best practices in comprehensive literacy instruction. If we strive to empower lives through literacy, we must carefully curate professional learning experiences with five key principles, shared in a recent Education Week article by Madeline Will, in mind. Read more about what works in professional teacher learning.

We’ve all been there before. A student can segment words with ease, but when it comes time to blend all letter-sounds to produce the whole word, students often guess or make a mistake. Today’s blog post will focus on continuous blending as a promising technique to support early decoding efforts.

AIM Institute team members joined educators and researchers from around the world at the International Dyslexia Association’s annual conference. Read some of their reflections in this week's #TeamTakeaways blog post.

Efficient decoding is dependent upon accuracy and automaticity in pairing letters to the sounds they represent. Take a moment to read about an effective approach that accelerates the acquisition of this foundational knowledge.

Early instruction activities to develop phonemic awareness can begin in preschool with formal instruction that typically spans through early first grade.

Emergent readers don’t need to sit down for long stretches of time to practice these skills, but rather, a few minutes of daily instruction is sufficient. Of the skills in the continuum, research directly supports three essential PA skills: Sounds isolation, Blending and Segmentation.

Young children, also known as pre-alphabetic readers according to Ehri’s Phases, are typically introduced to the world of literacy when stories are read at home or in their first school environment. To get the most out of these interactive reading experiences with young children, follow these four essential steps before, during, and after reading to develop early print awareness and some essential habits of good readers.

Achieving literacy for all students IS an attainable goal, and knowledge is the starting point! So, whether you are a parent, teacher, interventionist, or student with dyslexia, it is our job to seek out information to advocate for our students, children, or ourselves. Please don't delay, and jump in with us as we learn all about dyslexia through some of our top favorite books.

Learn the facts behind common myths about dyslexia including that people see letters and words backwards and that dyslexia can be outgrown.

Early identification of dyslexia and intervention are critical. AIM's Characteristics of Dyslexia Checklist was created to support educators as they identify characteristics of dyslexia. Although this checklist is not intended to make a diagnosis, it is a great tool to use for those concerned about a student's performance. Teachers and parents may use this checklist to consolidate multiple sources of information.  

October, a month dedicated to dyslexia and learning disabilities awareness, is the perfect time to launch AIM’s Science of Reading blog. Dyslexia Awareness Month was officially recognized by the US Congress in 2015 and is an important time focused on deepening the understanding of dyslexia, dispelling misconceptions, and advocating for improved teacher training opportunities for all educators.

Learn how everyone in your community can play a part in raising awareness of dyslexia.