Reading Road Trip: All Things Fluency with Dr. Jan Hasbrouck

In this IDA Ontario podcast featuring Kate Winn and Dr. Jan Hasbrouck, the focus is on the significance of reading fluency and its impact on students’ literacy development. Reading fluency, characterized by accuracy, rate, and prosody, plays a vital role in overall reading proficiency and comprehension. The podcast highlights the importance of assessing reading fluency effectively, and using research-backed approaches to supporting fluency development.

Reading Road Trip: Mighty Moves for Reading Success with Lindsay Kemeny

In this podcast episode, Lindsay Kemeny highlights the “7 Mighty Moves” she made to align her early literacy instruction with research. Moves include teaching phonemic awareness with intention, teaching phonics explicitly and systematically, teaching decoding strategies, using decodable texts for beginning readers, encouraging more decoding of high-frequency words, providing meaningful fluency practice, and embracing vocabulary and knowledge instruction to support comprehension.

Data-Based Decision Making in Multi-Tiered Systems of Support: Principles, Practices, Tips, and Tools

In this International Dyslexia Association Perspectives article, Sarah V. Arden and Jill M. Pentimonti emphasize the vital role of data-based decision-making in Multitiered Systems of Support (MTSS) to improve reading outcomes for students, especially those with disabilities. MTSS offers a framework with three tiers of instruction involving progress monitoring to determine suitable support levels. The authors stress the need for a climate of data fluency among educators, promoting collaboration to analyze data and identify students needing additional support. Diagnostic assessments are essential in Tier 3 to guide individualized interventions, with regular progress monitoring to make timely adjustments. The article aims to aid educators in effectively utilizing data to enhance student achievement within the MTSS framework.

Structured Literacy Interventions: Teaching Students with Reading Difficulties, Grades K-6

Structured Literacy Interventions is an anthology of chapters written by many well-known names in reading science, including Louise Moats, Devin Kearns and Louise Spear-Swerling who also edited the book. Chapters cover a wide range of possible areas of reading difficulty, including phonemic awareness & word recognition, spelling, fluency, vocabulary, oral language comprehension, reading comprehension and written expression. The title supports Strands B (Foundations of Language), C (Comprehension) and D (Composition) of the Language curriculum. Each chapter offers research-based background and practical applications for educators working with struggling students. The book includes lesson plans and application activities, and is perfect for special education and intervention teachers, but also helpful for classroom educators looking to intensify instruction for struggling students.

Student-Focused Coaching: The Instructional Coach’s Guide to Supporting Student Success Through Teacher Collaboration

Research shows that professional learning combined with extended peer coaching is an extremely effective method of ensuring new practices are applied in classrooms. This book presents the Student-Focused Coaching model, supporting teacher collaboration with the goal of increasing student success. Unlike many common coaching models (which may feel more evaluative and have formal observation and feedback components) SFC allows a classroom teacher to identify their goals, which they work towards with the support of their coach, also aligning well with the outcomes-driven MTSS model. An excellent resource for those working as instructional coaches, the book is also helpful for those in less formal coaching/support roles, administrators, and those working at the board level making decisions about professional development and coaching models. While SFC can be used within a wide range of curricular areas in all grades, it is perfectly suited to support teacher implementation of the new Language curriculum. 

Why Explicit Instruction?

Explicit Instruction expert, Dr. Anita Archer, provides the rationale and overview of explicit instruction and its benefit for students. Archer provides a quick 5 minute overview of what Explicit Instruction is and isn’t, with concise and kind language.  This resource can be used to for professional development and to begin discussion between educators on Explicit Instruction. 

Heart Word Magic Dissect a Word

This activity allows students to practice dissecting Heart Words (high-frequency words) with irregular letter sound relationships by listening to the individual phonemes in a word and then filling in the corresponding spellings. They fill in a heart above the irregular part of the word that must be learned “by heart” and write that tricky part again. 
Sample scripts are provided for the following words: saidfromhisofcould
This PDF includes 5 pages. Page 1 provides the overall directions, pages 2-4 provide the sample scripts and page 5 is the student spelling grid sheet.

Lessons Learned Through a Statewide Implementation of a Multi-Tiered System of Support

In this International Dyslexia Association Perspectives article, Steve Goodman discusses the successful implementation of a Multi-tiered System of Support (MTSS) in schools through an Integrated Behavior and Learning Support Initiative. The article presents five key lessons from scaling up MTSS, including defining MTSS clearly, using data and focusing on outcomes, strategic scaling, investing in local implementation capacity, and aligning MTSS with other key initiatives. Goodman emphasizes the ongoing nature of the implementation process and the significance of supporting educators for effective MTSS implementation and improved student success. The article offers valuable insights for education policymakers and practitioners.

Put Reading First: The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read

Put Reading First is a comprehensive guide to evidence-based reading instruction. Intended for educators and administrators, this guide aims to improve reading outcomes for children in the early grades.Chapter 1 provides an overview of the essential components of effective reading instruction, such as phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Chapter 2 focuses on the critical early stages of reading development, emphasizing the importance of explicit instruction in phonological awareness and phonics.Chapter 3 highlights the significance of developing automaticity and prosody in reading to enhance comprehension.Chapter 4 delves into the importance of vocabulary, teaching word meanings and strategies to foster word learning.Chapter 5 explains techniques for enhancing understanding, including active engagement, monitoring, and metacognition.Practical strategies for classroom instruction include using explicit and systematic phonics lessons, providing ample opportunities for guided oral reading, incorporating vocabulary-building activities, and promoting meaningful discussions to enhance comprehension.

Heart Word Magic – Help Students Learn to Read and Spell High-Frequency and Sight Words

Heart Word Magic is a complimentary teaching tool designed to help students learn to read and spell high-frequency words and sight words, particularly those that aren’t very decodable. There are 26 embedded videos in total. Each video explains the spelling pattern in a systematic and explicit manner in under 2 minutes.

Effective Universal Instruction: An Action-Oriented Approach to Improving Tier 1

Within a multi-tiered system of supports, instruction begins at the Tier 1 whole group level, and this book is a guide to making that Tier as effective as possible. MTSS can be applied to social-emotional and academic areas, including literacy, making this title an excellent support to the new Language curriculum. The book guides educators and leaders through a team-based and cyclical action plan based on questions around determining the effectiveness of current universal instruction with various assessments, what needs must be addressed, how they will be addressed, identifying barriers to effective Tier 1 implementation, how effectiveness of improvements to instruction can be monitored/measured, and whether improvements have ultimately been effective. Many reproducibles are included, such as meeting agendas and problem-solving checklists. Administrators will find great value in this book to aid their role as instructional leaders, as will consultants and coaches who support schools.

Morphological Awareness and Second Language Learners

In this International Dyslexia Association Perspectives article, Gloria Ramírez discusses the significance of morphological awareness in second language learners’ vocabulary learning and reading comprehension, providing valuable insights for educators. The article emphasizes that explicit and systematic instruction on morphological awareness can greatly benefit language learners, especially those facing reading difficulties. Educators can use the principles presented in the article to effectively teach students to identify smaller meaning units in complex words, enhancing their word reading accuracy, fluency, and comprehension. Additionally, the article highlights the transferability of morphological awareness skills from the learners’ first to their second language, enabling educators to capitalize on their existing language skills to improve their vocabulary and reading comprehension in the target language. Educators can better support second language learners developing strong language and literacy skills by incorporating these principles into their instruction.