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It's now well past February, but the remnants of Valentine's Day still linger in my couch cushions. The handmade cards are always my favorite ones to find… especially the ones wishing a "Happy Valantine's Day." I asked my first grader if he knew what makes the word Valentine so hard to spell. He guessed, "Because it's a long word," which is half right. Long words are usually multisyllabic, and multisyllabic words usually have a schwa. The schwa sound—such as the one on the first "e" in Valentine—is notorious for making words difficult to read and spell.

Raise your hand if you've ever heard a child joyfully declare, "X is for Xylophone!"?

When it comes to teaching children to read, the importance of a quality phonics program cannot be overstated. With so many options available, it can be challenging to determine which program will best suit the needs of your students.

Most parents of toddlers don’t understand how their children learn to read; when I sat and read to my children, I took for granted that they would someday magically be able to read on their own. It wasn’t until I began teaching struggling readers that I appreciated how complex and challenging learning to read is for many students. Many of my students got stuck reading individual words, and they became frustrated with reading. These students—and many students in our schools today—benefit from direct, explicit instruction in pairing letters and letter combinations with sounds, also known as phonics. Becoming automatic in reading individual words frees up the mental energy necessary for readers to make sense of texts. And, since 87% of English words are either completely decodable or have just one exception, teaching beginning readers to decode automatically gives them a large bank of known words.

Assessing students' needs and placing them appropriately is crucial to success in Read Live programs. Check out these short, informative videos to guide you through the process.

We are thrilled to announce that we are currently taking pre-orders for our latest and greatest new product, Read Naturally GATE+!

Who needs phonics support? Allow our QPS diagnostic phonics assessment to answer this question for you quickly and effectively. Did you know the latest edition of this popular tool allows you to assess an entire group of students at once and then use this data to determine which students need a more in-depth, individual phonics assessment? Both the group assessment and the individual assessment are now included in QPS, making it easier than ever for you to identify which students need phonics support and which skills an intervention should target.

Phonics skills are foundational to reading fluently and with comprehension. It's essential for reading teachers to determine which students need phonics support and what that support should look like. Read Naturally is here to support your students’ phonics needs every step of the way—from assessment, to intervention, to ongoing skill maintenance.

The renewed enthusiasm over the past few years for phonics instruction has been heartening. I have believed in, and therefore taught, phonics skills since the beginning of my teaching career in 1970. (In fact, I am the proud owner of a well-worn 1967 edition of A Guide to Teaching Phonics, by June Orton.) Phonemic awareness and basic phonics skills are essential foundations on which students build toward the ultimate goal of reading: comprehension. So, through the phonics wars and beyond I continued to teach phonics to my students (and I still do today).

Surprisingly, just over 50% of elementary teacher preparation programs in the United States offer courses in scientifically based reading methods (Moorer, 2020). Our new Foundational Reading Skills White Paper explains the science of how students learn to read and what skills they need to be taught.

Make Your Student a STAR!

Read Naturally Star of the Month​Share your student’s success story—nominate him or her for our Star of the Month award. Win a Barnes & Noble gift card for the student and a Read Naturally gift certificate for your class!

pointer Submit a Star-of-the-Month entry

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