Category: Article

If you’re a teacher and have wondered: “Is my school using a good phonics program?” “Do the incoming students know phonics?” “Am I giving students a full year of progress in phonics?” Or, if you’re a parent and have wondered: “Is my child getting a good foundation in phonics? This is the checklist for you. […]

If you search for “phonics videos” on YouTube, you’ll get an endless supply of phonics videos of questionable value. Most of the phonics videos leave out the second, third, and fourth sounds that many letters in the English language make. This frustrates beginning readers because they constantly run into exceptions when they practice reading. To […]

Do your kids get energized when reading books at night? Mine do. That’s why I like to read to them from the glow of my smartphone. The darkness settles them down and lets them focus on listening. If you like to read to your kids from the glow of a phone, too, here are five […]

Parents, grandparents, tutors, and teachers everywhere want to help beginning readers grow into people that can read anything. One way to turn beginning readers into expert readers is by teaching phonics in a comprehensive way that covers: How to write and sound out letters How to write and sound out letter teams (also called digraphs, trigraphs […]

What would you say if I told you that beginning readers don’t get to experience enough classic literature in our kindergarten, first-grade, and second-grade classrooms? Would you be concerned? I first became concerned after reading “The Story-Killers: A Common-Sense Case Against the Common Core” by Terrence Moore. In it, Moore writes: About the elementary classroom […]

Lately, I’ve been interested in how Montessori schools teach reading and writing. One promising approach is outlined in a NAMTA (North American Montessori Teachers’ Association) Journal article by Muriel I. Dwyer called “A Path for the Exploration of Any Language Leading to Writing and Reading”. The article can be purchased from NAMTA for $7.00 plus […]

I’ve used the Wordy Worm Reading program with my kids and in the program’s Fun-O-Guide book, it recommends decorating a phonics clue box and then using it daily to put in physical items that represent a new letter sound or phonogram sound each day. For example, if the letter sound of the day is H, […]

As mentioned in my post about multi-letter phonograms, some reading programs go beyond the letter sounds and primary multi-letter phonograms and also teach advanced phonograms. There are three programs that I’m aware of, which cover advanced phonograms. “The Writing Road to Reading” covers 17 advanced phonograms. They are: tch, eo, eau, augh, ce, gh, gi, […]

A phonogram is a letter or combination of letters, within a single syllable, that represents one or more sounds. For example, each letter in the alphabet is a phonogram. 15 letters of the alphabet (b,d,f,h,j,k,l,m,n,p,r,t,v,w,z) are single-letter phonograms that represent just one sound. 10 letters of the alphabet are single-letter phonograms that represent more than […]