Supercharge Interventions with Executive Functioning Support

No reading skill – from decoding and fluency to comprehension – can be successful without the use of executive functioning skills. When older readers struggle, weak executive functioning skills are often to blame. What we know about executive functioning Executive functioning (EF) has gained attention over the last few decades as its effect on learning […]

Teaching Nonfiction Text Structures to Older Students

5 easy steps to move students beyond graphic organizers But first… If you read our last blog post about nonfiction text structures, you already know where to begin – teaching and practicing the identification of each structure separately. As a reminder, we separate them into seven components: Download this and all pages from this post […]

Poetry Love!

Reading and writing poetry is essential for our struggling readers. It may be a “forgotten genre” in the academic standards, but its use in literacy has incredible benefits for our striving students. In reading, fluency and comprehension are the benefactors of its use, and in writing, organization and communication benefit. Here are some ways to […]

Celebrate Literacy All Year

Open book against heart shaped glitter, Valentines day concept for celebrating books blog title

with this literary calendar for middle school and high school! Do you think of a focus word each new year? This year, our word is preparation. We don’t mean the preparation of lesson plans – we mean the preparation for fun! How many times have we been halfway through the day only to read a […]

Phonological Awareness for Older Students

Smeared letters flying through colorful air for phonemic awareness in older students header

Phonological and phonemic awareness has been thought of as appropriate for only early readers, but research shows that even our older struggling readers benefit from these activities! Learn more here!

Four Steps to Scaffold Written Response

frustrated girl in black shirt holding pencil over books used as cover photo on blog with four steps to scaffold written response

Help your striving readers craft written responses to text Written responses seem to be the trend, including within state assessments. But how do we move our striving readers and writers to a point that they can express their thoughts, support them with text, and discuss them with others? After all, the purposes of written response […]

Reading and Listening Comprehension

chalk drawing of headphones over open real book on table top with chalkboard background to show listening and reading comprehension relationship

The link that matters! When we think of striving readers, we must expand our support to listening and reading comprehension. Hit the Repeat button! If you think your students aren’t listening to you, you’re probably right! Did you know that the human auditory brain structure is not fully mature until about 15 years old? That means […]

Accelerate Reading Skills to Avoid the Avalanche

graphic comparing the components of a snow avalanche to a reading skills avalanche to explain the need for a firm reading foundation to accelerate reading progress

Protect students from the middle school crash Perhaps it is the triple degree heat (or the Stanley Cup finals!) that makes me think of snow – and avalanches – rather than any summery metaphor. No matter – here we are, talking about how the lack of foundational skills often leads to the avalanche that is […]