This was originally posted on October 17, 2017 but was lost in my website upgrade. Confession time. When I walk into a classroom and see books and libraries organized by levels, I cringe. Like many things in the field of education, the trend towards leveling books by guided reading / Fountas and Pinnell / Lexile … Read more

This was originally posted on November 17,  2017 but got lost in my website upgrade! Big things happened with Fountas & Pinnell on a Twitter chat last week! What does this mean to you? How does it translate to your classroom library? And why am I so excited? Read on to find out! I feel … Read more

In my work with parents and teachers, I am often the question, “How do you get kids to read?” I provide this answer: ARC. The ARC acronym stands for Access (to high quality texts), Relevance, and Choice. In other words, kids are likely to read when they are immersed in texts that are engaging, personally … Read more

Just when we thought the world couldn’t get any crazier, I come to find out that there are reading researchers who actually believe that independent reading is not an effective use of classroom instructional time.  Are you like me in thinking, “What you talkin’ ‘bout Willis?” (Sidebar: Someone out there, please tell me you remember … Read more

One of the questions that I am most frequently asked (by both teachers and parents) pertains to sight words.  You know sight words – they are those pesky words that appear frequently in texts. If we were playing Charades, you’d use the “small word” sign to indicate a sight word. Sight words must be instantly recognized because … Read more

Do you know what a vowel is? And no, the correct answer IS NOT A, E, I, O, U (and sometimes Y). Let me geek out for a minute to explain why linguistics matter. Read my featured blog post from Mastery Chat for the answer (and why YOU should care).. https://www.thegridmethod.com/blog/vowels-consonants-linguistic-difference/

Several years ago, my mother sent me a Halloween card. The front depicted two ghosts; instead of saying “Boo”, they said “Oob.” The bottom of the card read “Dyslexic Ghosts” and the inside of the card read “Halloween Happy” rather than “Happy Halloween”. While the card was meant to provide some levity, it really got … Read more

If you’ve ever had to furnish an apartment on a budget, chances are you’ve had the pleasure of assembling Ikea furniture. Perhaps you’ve noticed that the directions are a bit different than most assembly manuals. Ikea’s assembly manuals rely entirely on pictures; there are no words to be found. If you’ve never assembled the beloved … Read more

If you’re a child of the 1980s, perhaps this image brings back memories. That’s the cover of the Worldly Wise vocabulary workbook that was ubiquitous in my elementary school. Each week, we’d get a list of a dozen or so vocabulary words. In our workbooks, we’d write them in alphabetic order. We’d do crossword puzzles and word … Read more

What’s better than cousins? Cousins who read together! I came home the other night to hear my seven-year old daughter FaceTiming with her cousins (ages 7 and 10). This is not an unusual occurrence in our house. We live in New York and they live in Boston – so they’ve been known to chat endlessly … Read more