The Importance of Phonemic Awareness for Strong Reading Skills What is phonemic awareness, and why is it important for teaching reading?  The ability to recognize and work with individual sounds in words is critical to building strong reading and spelling skills.  It turns out that all those nursery rhymes and fun alphabet games we play with young children are not just for fun.  They are building pathways for reading success. Phonemic awareness is a good

Addressing the social-emotional learning needs of our students needs to happen first for instruction to take place.  I’ve always felt that using well-written, age-appropriate children’s literature can provide teachable moments that children can use to explore feelings and actions that they may not be able to address in real life. I’m so excited to announce the release of my new book, Alpacas Don’t Get Angry! which helps young readers learn about handling anger and gives

Sound Walls in the Classroom Are you curious about sound walls?  Would you like to know how to use sound walls in the classroom?  Here is the information you need to get started and a few resources to help. Using a sound wall can be a game-changer for struggling readers.  Based on the science of reading with proven research, this way of teaching lets students use the way their brains learn best. What are Sound

Classroom Organization Ideas for Back to School Teachers, it’s that time of year again! Time to start planning and organizing your classroom for the new school year. Today, I’m going to share with you some tips on how to get your classroom organized and in shape for the new school year. Enjoy! 🙂 Here is a list of items to make your room run smoothly.  It may seem overwhelming at first, so let me show

Multisensory teaching is helping students learn by engaging multiple senses and it is a good teaching practice. In addition, it makes learning FUN! These strategies bring together techniques to help your students learn and grow the way their brains work. Read on to find out more about multisensory techniques that can help struggling readers. What is multisensory teaching? Multisensory teaching is the process of using multiple senses to help students learn. While most teaching is