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All About Teaching Reading & Writing
Taxonomy
The Simple View of Reading

Word Recognition x Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension

Assessment

The process of measuring students' progress and providing information to help guide instruction

Word Recognition

The ability to see a word and know how to pronounce it without consciously thinking about it

Phonological Awareness

A group of skills that enable you to recognize and manipulate parts of spoken words

Articulation

Syllables

Onset-Rime

Phonemic Awareness

Phonics

A method for teaching children the relationship between spoken sounds and written letters so they can learn to decode and encode

Sound-Letter Correspondence

Phonics Patterns

Common letter combinations found in words.

Short Vowels Skill Explainer
Closed Syllables Skill Explainer
Glued Sounds Skill Explainer
Open Syllables Skill Explainer
Spelling with 'c' vs. 'k' Skill Explainer
Consonant Digraphs Skill Explainer
Blends Skill Explainer
‘-ck’ Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
FLoSS(Z) Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
‘y’ as a Vowel Skill Explainer

Coming soon.

    Magic 'e' Skill Explainer
    Soft 'c' and Soft 'g' Skill Explainer

    Coming soon.

      R-Controlled Vowels Skill Explainer

      Coming soon.

        Vowel Teams and Dipthongs Skill Explainer

        Coming soon.

          '-tch' Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
          '-dge' Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
          Consonant '-le' Skill Explainer

          Coming soon.

            Schwa Skill Explainer

            Coming soon.

              Irregularly Spelled High-Frequency Words

              High-frequency words that have a part of their spelling that has to be memorized

              Irregularly Spelled High-Frequency Words

              Multisyllable Words

              Words that have more than one word part

              Prefixes

              How to add meaningful beginnings to words

              Suffixes

              How to add meaningful endings to words

              Language Comprehension

              The ability to understand the meaning of spoken words

              Reading Comprehension

              The ability to understand the meaning of printed text

              Text Considerations

              Characteristics of a text that impact the ease or difficulty of comprehension.

              Strategies and Activities

              How a reader approaches a specific text, depending on their purpose for reading

              Reader’s Skill and Knowledge

              The skills and knowledge a reader brings to the reading task that are necessary for comprehension

              Sociocultural Context

              Elements in a classroom that affect how well a child learns to read

              Fluency

              The ability to read accurately with automaticity and expression

              Fluency: Accuracy, then Automaticity

              Reading or decoding words correctly (accuracy) and reading at an appropriate rate (automaticity)

              Accuracy, then Automaticity Skill Explainer

              Coming soon.

                Fluency: Expressive Text Reading

                Reading characterized by accuracy with automaticity and expression

                Expressive Text Reading Skill Explainer

                Coming soon.

                  (active)
                  Writing

                  The act of putting thoughts into print using transcription and composition skills

                  Features of Structured Literacy

                  A systematic and explicit approach to teaching reading based on research

                  • Sentence Writing

                  How can I motivate young writers?

                  Motivating young writers is not always easy, says Joan Sedita, founder of Keys to Literacy, but some strategies include giving students opportunities to work collaboratively, encouraging students to write about topics that are meaningful to them, and teaching students the power of writing to an authentic audience.

                  Video thumbnail for How Can I Motivate Young Writers?
                  Produced by Reading Universe, a partnership of WETA, Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book
                  Hide Video Transcript Show Video Transcript

                  Motivation and engagement is one of those things that when I'm out in the field training teachers on how to teach reading and writing, it's the first thing that they bring up. "My students aren't motivated, I can't keep them engaged." And there is no one single magic bullet for this, right? But we know from experience and from the research that's out there that it's actually a group of things that we can do. And the more of these things that we can do, the better the chance we are at keeping kids motivated and engaged. So, what are those things? One of them is to give them opportunities to work collaboratively with their peers. And that could be at a thinking stage, planning stage, writing, revising. Another thing we know is allow them to write about things that are meaningful to them. Have it be about things in their everyday lives that they can connect to or about the news that's important to them.

                  We also know that if students feel like they're connecting or writing to an authentic audience instead of just, "Well, I'm writing this and the only person who's ever going to read it is the teacher and it's for a grade." The power of writing authentic audiences can't be overestimated. It's something that when you actually get somebody to respond can be unbelievably motivating. And let me give you a couple of examples. We've worked in a lot of schools where the teachers are purposely trying to give students authentic audiences. So, they might have students write letters to children in the grade before who are coming up into that grade, or they might be writing something to the principal and the principal actually writes them back. But they could also do things like write to the head of Microsoft Word or write to the head of the electric company on an issue related to climate change.

                  And every once in a while when someone from those organizations writes back to the student or the classroom, you immediately see the motivation. The other example that I can give you is one that I saw in the news recently. This was a young 4-year-old child who loved, — I won't name the name of the company -- but a certain kind of muffin that came four in a pack. And he complained to his mom that " ... why don't they put five in a pack? "And so his mom said, "Let's write a letter to the company." And he couldn't actually write, but he dictated. And he said to the mother, they talked about what he should say, and the mother wrote it down. And then he put his signature, which is an X, and the mom sent it off. And guess what happened? A few weeks later, a box came in the mail with 20 of the muffin packages and a little explanation about why they can't put five in a pack ... but we hope you enjoy these. That kid saw the power of writing to an audience and that people will listen to what you say. And guess what? Even if that kid's a struggling writer, he's going to always learn and want to write because of that thing that happened to him at 4-years old.

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                  Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim & Donna Barksdale; the Hastings/Quillin Fund, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (opens in new window); the AFT (opens in new window); the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation (opens in new window); and three anonymous donors.