What is phonics? Phonics is the ability to pair individual sounds with a visual symbol (letters). This method is frequently used to teach reading. Phonics teaches the sounds that letters or groups of letters make when spoken. Phonics is the process of matching sounds to letters. Reading experts refer to this as the alphabetic principle.…
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Background Knowledge and Reading Comprehension
Factual knowledge, also known as background knowledge, can make the difference from not having a clue what you have read to comprehending and completely understanding what you have read.
4th of July Family Activities
The 4th of July is perfect for outside activities in your backyard, like a BBQ. Some of our favorite activities include relay races and obstacle courses. You might not realize it, but obstacle courses and relay races improve several areas of learning, including laterality, directionality, visual memory, and auditory memory. These family activities target the mind-body connection, which…
The Visual Processing System: How Does it Impact Learning?
Visual processing often means how well you discriminate between one letter and another or one word and another. This is prominent with kids who confuse letters, also known as letter reversals. Below are some examples of letters and words that kids mix up…
Vocabulary and Reading: The Connection
How are vocabulary and reading connected? To understand what you have read, you need to know the meaning of the words you are reading. Research tells us that vocabulary knowledge, including both oral and written vocabulary, is critically important for a child’s success in school (Kamil et al., 2008). That being said, each person has…
How to Create a Daily Schedule for Kids (FREE Printable)
School’s out, and summer is here! Pool parties, backyard barbeques, days at the river… and summer learning loss! Hold up. Wait. Let’s put a stop to the summer learning loss, but let’s keep the good stuff. Kids often lose much of what they learned from the school year over the summer. This is because most…
Summer Learning Loss: How to Prevent the Summer Slide
4 Steps to Stop Summer Learning Loss Kids often lose much of what they learned from the school year over the summer. This is because most of the time, during the summer, we don’t spend much time stimulating the brain and keeping them active. It’s typical for kids to lose between two and four months…
6 Benefits of Summer Reading Programs
Table of Contents The struggle is real when it comes to keeping your K-8th graders entertained and educated during the summer months! After all, there’s only so much Minecraft, swimming, and fort building one can handle. But fear not, summer reading programs have been saving summers for decades, offering fantastic benefits for your little ones.…
What is Reading Fluency?
Reading Fluency Definition Reading fluency is the ability to read smoothly, easily, and quickly. Good readers can read words automatically without having to sound out each syllable (also known as decoding). In other words, you don’t have to spend a lot of effort and attention on the mechanics of reading. Reading becomes easy. Word recognition…
Brain-Body Connection: Movement and Learning
How does the brain-body connection affect overall learning skills? Most of us don’t think about learning skills in conjunction with the brain-body connection and movement. However, the brain-body connection and movement are very important to your ability to learn and master reading skills. The brain and body work together as a machine, one designed to…
