The Learning Spark

  I’m filled with so many emotions when I look at this picture. Tenderness, sadness, regret. The signs of dyslexia were there, but I didn’t see them. I didn’t even know them. Back then we spent so much time memorizing those “sight words.” He remembered that the word “of” has an o and an f, but he couldn’t remember the order (hadn’t mapped those letters and sounds). I think it’s pretty clever that he tried to spell the word “love” with the same letters he heard in the word “of.” And he often mixed up letter names…so when he wanted to write, “I love you, Mom” he put a y instead of the letter u for the word “you.” Oh my heart. I can see the struggle and the effort this writing took…and I love that it’s a picture of me and him…flying drones together on a train track. -He’s always loved trains. I didn’t see the signs of dyslexia. I didn’t even know what dyslexia was. If I had known how to help my son when he was in kindergarten, I could have prevented so much heartache. I can imagine wh...

I recently read Tim Shanahan’s blog post about his reading pet peeves and it really got me thinking about my own. So, without further ado, here are my top 5 pet peeves about teaching reading. Pet Peeve #1: Telling a child they can only read books from their “assigned reading level.” Nothing kills the love of reading faster than telling someone that they can’t read a book because it’s either too easy or too hard for them. Just imagine the shame and embarrassment these restrictions might cause a student, especially if noticed by his/her peers. When students read for pleasure, they should be free to select books and topics that interest them and teachers should encourage that. Additionally, reading levels tend to be rather arbitrary and unreliable. A student who knows a lot about a topic will be able to navigate a more complex text on that topic.  As a parent, I have experienced both ends of the spectrum on this issue. When my son (with dyslexia) was in the 3rd grade, I made sure tha...

I am excited to share with you a professional development series based on the science of reading that I created for my master’s program. Since I strongly believe that every student deserves a teacher who understands the science behind reading, I am sharing these for free. 😊  Please know that this is only meant to be the very beginning of your science of reading journey. There is so much more to learn! You can access the information here:  https://sites.google.com/view/scienceofreadingpd/home If you are interested in the study I did for my capstone project, you are welcome to watch the presentation I created here: https://youtu.be/C0b8HF_L8V8

My son has experienced many highs and lows since I wrote the blog post  Childhood Depression and How You can Help , but at the end of his 3rd grade year he seemed to hit rock bottom. It could be because I had not been as vigorous and proactive with his depression as I had the previous year. I perhaps got a little relaxed with some of the ideas I felt so passionately about. -But he also started to really compare himself to his peers at this age, and the gaps in his learning were becoming more and more apparent to him. He’d stare dejectedly at all his school assignments…a big, red 1 at the top of each paper…and he’d anxiously tell me that everyone else in his class got 3’s.  I will never forget the day he looked me in the eyes and said, “I wish I was one of those babies that got left in a hot car.” It took my breath away. My beautiful son was sinking. Suddenly we were bombarded with suicidal thoughts, desires, and comments. “I wish I was dead!” he would scream desperately over a...

The Why: I was shocked when I read that phonemic awareness is the most common source of reading difficulties. What!?! Why in the world was I never taught about this in college?  Luckily, it has now become quite a hot topic in education, and for good reason. Before we get into the how of phonemic awareness, let's clear up a few terms that are often confused. First of all, this: (Image from  https://www.theliteracynest.com/ ) I often hear teachers use the terms phonics and phonemic awareness interchangeably, but they are two separate things. Phonemic awareness is an awareness of the individual sounds in a word. When you tie those sounds with print (letters)....it then becomes phonics. Another term that is often confused is phonological awareness and phonemic awareness. Phonological awareness is the umbrella term for the knowledge of sounds in spoken language.  Phonemic awareness is a subset skill and is the highest level of phonological awareness.  It i...

Teaching my kindergartners to read was so frustrating my first year. As kindergarten teachers, we naturally focus a lot on phonics.  After all, our main objective is to teach students the alphabet!  We spend a lot of time drilling and practicing letter names and sounds.  So, after spending so much time on letter/sound instruction, I'd bring small groups of students to the reading table and would give them books provided by our big box curriculum.  Suddenly, I had to tell students to stop sounding out the words and basically throw everything out the window that we had previously been learning. Example of a "repetitive" or "predictable" text. Another example of a "repetitive" or "predictable" text. "Oh, this word you can't sound out. Look at the picture, does it give you a clue?" I was so frustrated that these stories could not be read without me telling them the sentence pattern or having them look at the pictures fo...

When my two oldest boys were in swimming lessons, I remember watching them, amused, as they'd literally walk back and forth between the width of the pool while making big swim strokes with their arms.  I'd see other kids in the class actually swimming...but my boys? They were walking.  They were going through the motions of swimming, without actually swimming. This is often what we see in classrooms today.  Students appear to be reading...some even become quite expert at keeping up the appearance.  Their arms are doing their strokes perfectly...but if you look under the water?  They're only walking.   Let me explain. I had a student one year who severely struggled in school.   By the end of her kindergarten year, she only knew a handful of letters.  I remember placing a book in front of her as I administered our state-mandated end-of-year kindergarten test.  She vaguely looked at the words on the page and then studied the p...

When N was diagnosed with depression last year, I was devastated!  He was only 7 years old...I felt like I had failed as a mother.  I mean, what sort of mom can't make her child happy?  Of course this is a totally unfair assumption, but those were the thoughts running through my mind at the time.  When the doctor had asked N if he was happy, he replied, "Not very much."  This broke. my. heart. Dyslexia and depression often go hand in hand and the reason is obvious.  Every day N is forced to be in an environment that constantly reminds him he is failing.  Dyslexia doesn't just affect his reading ability but every aspect of his learning and life.  Handwriting is tedious, spelling feels hopeless, learning facts near impossible, multi-step directions are overwhelming, he even struggles to recall certain words as he speaks.   Every day he goes to school knowing he will face countless hurdles that are simply too high. No matter how hard ...