Reading For Life: High Quality Literacy Instruction For All

In Reading For Life, author Lyn Stone holds nothing back when sharing research and best practices for literacy instruction, and outlining why some past beliefs and practices have to go for the sake of our students and their reading and writing development. Section 1 covers structured literacy components such as oral language, phonological awareness, phonics,…

Structured Literacy Infographic

This infographic provides a comprehensive visual guide to structured literacy, an evidence-based approach to teaching language and literacy. By illustrating both the “how” and “what” of structured literacy, the infographic serves as a valuable resource for educators committed to fostering strong foundational literacy skills in all learners. To support printing, there is both a dark…

Maya’s Book Nook: Beyond the Book Resources

Maya’s Book Nook is a website created by Speech-Language Pathologist Dr. Lakeisha Johnson. The Behind the Book section houses a bank of materials to accompany a diverse, culturally relevant children’s book. Equally useful for both parents/caregivers and educators, these handouts include target vocabulary words, as well as questions to support dialogic reading to build language comprehension.

Guide for Selecting Anti-Bias Children’s Books

Children’s books reflect the attitudes in our society about diversity, power relationships among different groups of people, and various social identities (e.g., racial, ethnic, gender, economic class, sexual orientation, and disability). The visual and verbal messages young children absorb from books (and other media) heavily influence their ideas about themselves and others. Depending on the…

OCDSB Cursive Writing Resources

This is a fabulous collection of cursive writing resources created by the OCDSB Occupational Therapists and Learning Support Services Department. It includes a document with background knowledge of why cursive is important (including research and curriculum links), a slide deck with animated demonstrations of letter formation, and practice sheets for each letter.   Note that…

“No More Strategy of the Week”: Considerations for Connecting Comprehension Instruction Back to the Book

In this article, the authors present some considerations for abandoning decontextualized strategy instruction and instead provide some ideas for how to shape comprehension instruction around the texts we use in the classroom. They offer some guiding theories, some key considerations, and they present examples for classroom teachers.

Reconsidering Reading Levels

The Ontario Human Rights Commission’s Right to Read inquiry concluded that running records and reading level assessments have not been effective in identifying students who need additional support or in providing teachers with accurate information to guide instruction. We now know that there are more effective ways to understand student reading skills and ensure that…

Juicy Sentence Guidance

Far too often, students who struggle with reading and language are given simplified, uninteresting texts. These texts are judged to be “at-the-students’ language or reading level” but deny students access to rich, interesting, age-appropriate text. This guidance document outlines some ideas for fostering conversations around “juicy sentences,” where students learn to deconstruct and reconstruct sentences,…