Have you ever felt like your child just doesn’t “get it”? You push and you teach and you teach some more, but you’re just met with resistance. A wide range of things can cause resistance when you’re teaching reading and spelling.

Did you know that President Taft was so big he needed to have a jumbo-sized bathtub installed in the White House? Or that George Washington’s first set of false teeth were made out of hippopotamus ivory? If your kids think history is boring, these books just might change their minds!

When making words plural, why do you add S to some words but ES to others? And when a word ends with Y, how do you know whether to change the Y to I before adding the plural suffix? And why on earth does the word knife become knives?

It can be challenging for young readers to read at the right pace. Some kids read too slowly, while others read too fast.

Reading too fast may seem like a somewhat unlikely problem. Having a child who reads too slowly can throw up obvious red flags, but parents and teachers aren’t always as concerned when a child reads too quickly.

Closed and open syllables are the first two syllable types students should learn. Out of the six syllable types, these two are the easiest for students to master.

What Is a Closed Syllable?

In its simplest form, a closed syllable is a vowel followed by a consonant. Examples include cap, sit, and up.

When winter comes and snow piles high in the yard, there’s nothing better to do than build a snowman! This collection of sweet picture books will inspire you to create some wintertime magic with your children.

Practice Sheets are a key part of the All About Reading program, and for good reason: they help kids develop fluency, which is the ability to read smoothly, accurately, and with expression. In fact, many of you call them “fluency sheets” because they are so helpful in guiding students toward fluency.

A great technique for preventing spelling errors is called “Pronounce for Spelling.”

When you pronounce for spelling, you exaggerate the pronunciation of a word to make it easier to spell. For example, in casual speech we often pronounce the word different as difrent, leaving out the second syllable. When we pronounce for spelling, we carefully enunciate each syllable (dif-fer-ent), making it much easier to spell. Continue reading…

Sometimes all it takes to spark a reluctant reader’s interest in books is finding the perfect genre. Loaded with illustrations and short text blurbs, graphic novels might be just what you need to open up a whole new world of reading for your child.

Have you tried buddy reading?

Buddy reading is a great way to help your child gain fluency. In buddy reading, you and your child take turns reading by sentence, paragraph, or page. Also called paired reading or partner reading, buddy reading has multiple benefits, but perhaps the biggest benefit is that it prevents discouragement.

When you have a child with dyslexia, does it sometimes feel like you need a miracle?

You’ve exhausted all avenues, but you can’t give up—because it’s your child.

Once upon a time, the people of Iceland developed a wonderful holiday tradition. And then, thanks to the power of the Internet, the rest of the world learned of this delightful holiday activity and adopted it wholeheartedly. If you haven’t already joined the fun of Jólabókaflód, you’re about to discover a jolly holiday treat!