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As a special education teacher, my young students have struggled with reversals and differentiating between the /b/ and /d/ sounds, when reading and writing. We often teach them the "b-e-d" strategy, but students continue to confuse the letters and sounds. It just doesn't work. The strategy I'm sharing focuses on only one of the letters/sounds, rather than both. This is the key to why it works so well and it really makes sense. This strategy has consistently proven to be successful with all of m

Short, focused, intensive literacy intervention instruction for young students, struggling to break the code of early reading / word work. Students that are struggling with learning to read need instruction in phonological and phonemic awareness, segmenting sounds into words, and lots of practice hearing, speaking, reading, writing, and manipulating sounds and letters. Many of the popular Orton-Gillingham programs are excellent, but when used with fidelity, the lessons generally take 50-60 minut

Reading Fluency with the Alphabet? Why not? Do your students have difficulty attending to punctuation while reading? Try having them read, not sing, the alphabet with periods, question marks, and exclamation marks. Reading these alphabet strips will begin to give them some awareness to the specific punctuation in text. Just print the alphabet page and cut it up into strips. Kids really enjoy this super fast activity. Perfect to start or end your regular literacy block or for partner work. But b

Reading nonsense words is an important way to determine if your students are truly learning word work/phonics rules. Since they can’t gain meaning from these words, they must rely on their decoding knowledge. Students will play this modified version of Go Fish by each having their own hand of five cards and taking turns asking the other players if they have a specific word in order to make a match. The game concludes when all of the cards are used up and the student with the most pairs wins. J

Short, focused, intensive literacy instruction for young students struggling to break the code of early reading / word work. Students that are struggling with learning to read need instruction in phonological and phonemic awareness, segmenting sounds into words, and lots of practice hearing, speaking, reading, writing, and manipulating sounds and letters. Many of the popular Orton-Gillingham programs are excellent, but when used with fidelity, the lessons generally take 50-60 minutes. Unfortunat

This Partial Sums template for solving addition problems helps teach students to line up the numbers and calculate the correct numbers. Red and blue makes purple. Simply, copy the template on a color printer, then slip it into a page protector or use an overhead clear sheet and an Expo or Vis-a-Vis marker. The template is a tool that works well with struggling students, as it provides a clear visual. Please let me know if you have any questions. Enjoy!

Winter Olympics Sochi Making Words Word Scramble Literacy Activity Printable This Winter Olympics Sochi step book activity is fun, engaging, and great for all grades, (including adults). Students make words using the letters from “WINTER OLYMPICS SOCHI” and write them in a step book, according to the number of letters. It can be used with individual students or in pairs. I’ve included the instructions for the activity, the step book, folding instructions and exactly how to copy and fold it (I'v

St. Patrick's Day Word Scramble Literacy Activity Printable This St. Patrick's Day step book activity is fun, engaging, and great for all grades, (including adults). Students make words using the letters from “HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY” and write them in a step book, according to the number of letters. It can be used with individual students or in pairs. I’ve included the instructions for the activity, the step book, folding instructions and exactly how to copy and fold it (I've done the hard par

Reading nonsense words is an important way to determine if your students are truly learning word work/phonics rules. Since they can’t gain meaning from these words, they must rely on their decoding knowledge. Students will play this modified version of Go Fish by each having their own hand of five cards and taking turns asking the other players if they have a specific word in order to make a match. The game concludes when all of the cards are used up and the student with the most pairs wins. J

Short, focused, intensive literacy instruction for young students struggling to break the code of early reading / word work. Students that are struggling with learning to read need instruction in phonological and phonemic awareness, segmenting sounds into words, and lots of practice hearing, speaking, reading, writing, and manipulating sounds and letters. Many of the popular Orton-Gillingham programs are excellent, but when used with fidelity, the lessons generally take 50-60 minutes. Unfortunat

Short, focused, intensive literacy instruction for young students struggling to break the code of early reading / word work. Students that are struggling with learning to read need instruction in phonological and phonemic awareness, segmenting sounds into words, and lots of practice hearing, speaking, reading, writing, and manipulating sounds and letters. Many of the popular Orton-Gillingham programs are excellent, but when used with fidelity, the lessons generally take 50-60 minutes. Unfortunat

Valentine's Day Making Words Word Scramble Literacy Printable This Valentine's Day step book activity is fun, engaging, and great for all grades, (including adults). Students make words using the letters from “HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY” and write them in a step book, according to the number of letters. It can be used with individual students or in pairs. I’ve included the instructions for the activity, the step book, folding instructions and exactly how to copy and fold it (I've done the hard part

Thanksgiving Word Scramble Literacy Activity: This Thanksgiving step book activity is fun, engaging, and great for all grades, (including adults). Students make words using the letters from “HAPPY THANKSGIVING” and write them in a step book, according to how many letters. It can be used with individual students or in pairs. I’ve included the instructions for the activity, the step book and exactly how to copy and put it together (it's easy), letters to be cut-up, and a big list of words (organi

President's Day Word Scramble Literacy Activity: This President's Day step book activity is fun, engaging, and great for all grades, (including adults). Students make words using the letters from “HAPPY PRESIDENT'S DAY” and write them in a step book, according to the number of letters. It can be used with individual students or in pairs. I’ve included the instructions for the activity, the step book (exactly how to copy and put it together -it's easy), letters to be cut-up, and a big list of wor

Christmas Word Scramble Literacy Activity: This Christmas step book activity is fun, engaging, and great for all grades, (including adults). Students make words using the letters from “HAPPY CHRISTMAS” and write them in a step book, according to the number of letters. It can be used with individual students or in pairs. I’ve included the instructions for the activity, the step book (exactly how to copy and put it together -it's easy), letters to be cut-up, and a big list of words (organized by n

Christmas Word Scramble Literacy Activity: This Christmas step book activity is fun, engaging, and great for all grades, (including adults). Students make words using the letters from “MERRY CHRISTMAS” and write them in a step book, according to the number of letters. It can be used with individual students or in pairs. I’ve included the instructions for the activity, the step book (exactly how to copy and put it together -it's easy), letters to be cut-up, and a big list of words (organized by n

Hanukkah / Chanukah Word Scramble Literacy Activity: This Hanukkah step book activity is fun, engaging, and great for all grades, (including adults). Students make words using the letters from “LIGHT THE MENORAH” and write them in a step book, according to the number of letters. It can be used with individual students or in pairs. I’ve included the instructions for the activity, the step book (exactly how to copy and put it together -it's easy), letters to be cut-up, and a big list of words (org

Australia Day Making Words Word Scramble Literacy Activity Printable This Australia Day step book activity is fun, engaging, and great for all grades, (including adults). Students make words using the letters from “HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY” and write them in a step book, according to the number of letters. It can be used with individual students or in pairs. I’ve included the instructions for the activity, the step book, folding instructions and exactly how to copy and fold it (I've done the hard par

Groundhog Day Word Scramble Literacy Activity: This Groundhog Day step book activity is fun, engaging, and great for all grades, (including adults). Students make words using the letters from “HAPPY GROUNDHOG DAY” and write them in a step book, according to the number of letters. It can be used with individual students or in pairs. I’ve included the instructions for the activity, the step book (exactly how to copy and put it together -it's easy), letters to be cut-up, and a big list of words (or

Chinese New Year Making Words Word Scramble Literacy Activity Printable This Chinese New Year step book activity is fun, engaging, and great for all grades, (including adults). Students make words using the letters from “CHINESE NEW YEAR” and write them in a step book, according to the number of letters. It can be used with individual students or in pairs. I’ve included the instructions for the activity, the step book, folding instructions and exactly how to copy and fold it (I've done the hard