• Teaching Spelling: How can I help students become independently spellers?

    Becoming an independent speller is a tough job for our students. After all, it is a task that requires our students to process multiple skills at one time. In my mind, they go group several “levels” as they work toward independently spelling words that follow typical spelling patterns. I love watching my students develop their […]

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  • How to Teach Morphemes: from Basic Endings to Greek & Latin Roots

    Morphemes might sound a little overwhelming, but they are actually quite simple. Morphemes are a small units of language. I had this idea that morphemes were these scary Greek and Latin roots. And while those are certainly *part* of it, it’s so much more simple than that. We can help our students become better readers, […]

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  • Teaching Spelling: How to Understand and Teach Vowel Teams & Syllables

    Teaching students to spell words with vowel teams and multiple syllables used to *really* intimidate me. And if vowel teams and syllable types intimidated me, how do you think our students feel? Below, you’ll find a few tips and tricks to help reduce the intimidation factor and making teaching words with vowel teams and multiple […]

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  • Phonemes & Graphemes: What are they and how can you teach them?

    Phonemes and graphemes are two words that are used often, but what do they mean? Using what we know about the roots phone and graph, we can likely figure it out. However, I’d like to begin this blog post with a few definitions and some potential strengths and weaknesses. A phoneme is the individual sound that […]

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  • Phonological and Phonemic Awareness: What do SPED teachers need to know?

    Phonological and Phonemic Awareness are two critical literacy skills that a student must learn to become good readers. It is important as special education teachers that we know what each one of these skills are and how to use them to help our students become successful readers. Phonemic Awareness is a narrow, specific term that […]

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