Early Reading

Early reading instruction builds the foundation for lifelong literacy. In elementary classrooms, this includes developing phonemic awareness, teaching systematic phonics, strengthening decoding skills, and supporting students as they build fluency and confidence. Strong early reading instruction is explicit, intentional, and responsive to student needs.

Early Reading

24+ Hands-On Sight Word Activities for Kindergarten

Learning letter sounds, blending and segmenting words, and various phonics skills are foundational for early reading. However, there are just some words that can’t be sounded out. Sight words are…

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Early Reading

How to Print the Blending Cards in a Variety of Formats

Blending Cards are a great tool to use with students who are learning to read. The Blending Cards are formatted whole-page, but you can print them in many different page configurations to meet…

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Early Reading

Open and Closed Syllables Games and Activities

Reading and writing open and closed syllables is a foundational skill for multisyllabic decoding. Learning to read part of a word helps students break down longer words into more manageable chunks…

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Early Reading

CVC Cut & Paste Worksheets & Phonics Cards

I do not enjoy using too many worksheets in my classroom. I believe that students should be interacting with the content and each other. Whenever I create a worksheet for…

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Early Reading

Blending Cards for Early Readers

Blending Cards help students segment, blend, and read words in a variety of phonics patterns. They are great for kindergarten and first grade students or second or third grade students…

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Early Reading

Phonics Passages by CVC Word Family Phonics Readers

Word Family Phonics Readers for CVC Words include decoding practice, sight word practice, and three passages per word family. These phonics readers only include short vowel CVC words and sight…

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Early Reading

Do Kids Learn to Read in Kindergarten? One Teacher-Mom’s Honest Answer

Do kids learn to read in kindergarten? Most do—but not all —and my son was one of them. I am an elementary teacher who taught K–2 for years and has…

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Early Reading

Stop Sounds vs. Continuous Sounds: What Every Reading Teacher Should Know

Understanding the difference between stop sounds vs. continuous sounds is one of the most practical things you can know as a reading teacher. How you model each sound directly affects…

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Early Reading

Blending and Segmenting Tips for Student Success

If you teach early reading, consider how you are teaching your students to read. Do you teach students to memorize words? Or, do you teach them to sound out a word and…

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Early Reading

What is the Difference Between Decodable Text and Predictable or Patterned Text?

When you sit down to plan what you’re teaching for your small group reading instruction, how do you decide the kind of text you are putting in front of your…

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Early Reading

How to Teach Phonics with Your Grade-Level Team

Working with other teachers is hard. No doubt about it. You all have different teaching styles and viewpoints on what is important and how to teach it. When teaching phonics,…

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Early Reading

Why do we teach nonsense words? It doesn’t make sense.

Do you teach and assess nonsense words? Do you know why you do it? There’s a reason why we teach these types of non-words in schools. In fact, teaching…

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