I help teachers get struggling readers to grade level in weeks, not years. Founder, Reading Simplified · Lead developer, IES-funded TRI · https://xitter.cf/t.co/Dj9T7Qyufd
Colorado Springs, CO
Joined June 2013
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"We're flipping them like pancakes!" Amy's pull-out kids now exit intervention in as little as 8 weeks.
Why do kids sit in intervention for months? We wait for mastery. Move on at about 70%. They'll keep practicing the old pattern inside the new one.
“If the kid hasn’t learned it, the teacher hasn’t taught it.”
That line from Sold a Story Season 2 is why I started Reading Simplified 25+ years ago.
Tomorrow 8pm ET: @BuildMathMinds (math) + me (reading) on episodes 1 & 2. Same factions, different subject
“We’re flipping students like pancakes. Their teacher tells us they’re struggling and then we work with them and send them back in 3 weeks.”
That’s how an interventionist’s colleague describes her work: struggling readers come in, and they’re back in class in 3 weeks.
It’s a vivid line, and it deserves to be taken seriously. It’s one clear example of what can happen when instruction is efficient, diagnostic, and targeted. It isn’t a guarantee or a promise that every struggling reader needs 3 weeks, which is still unusual even for Reading Simplified, and it’s no reason to minimize students with more complex needs.
We’ve had 5+ years of Science of Reading momentum, and state regulations, training requirements, and district conversations have shifted.
That progress matters.
Yet in many places the 95% reading success goal researchers have shown is possible still feels far away.
So it’s fair to ask whether we’ve lost some urgency, whether we’ve lowered expectations because the work has felt so hard, and whether we’ve confused “more aligned” with “more effective for this child today”.
Teachers are not the problem. They’ve been working inside systems that often give them too many disconnected pieces and too few tools for fast, responsive decision-making.
Reading Simplified is built for a different kind of instructional rhythm: assess what the student can do, teach with high-leverage routines, watch the response and adjust quickly, then move the student into real reading and writing as soon as possible. That kind of instruction can renew momentum because it gives teachers clearer next steps and students more chances to show measurable growth.
The 95% goal should keep pressing us toward better tools, higher expectations, and faster evidence of progress, instead of becoming a slogan we admire from a distance.
This week, look for signs that students are moving faster than before: more accurate blending, stronger word reading, better spelling attempts, smoother connected text.
What’s one measurable sign of faster progress you’ll watch for in your next reading group?
#ScienceOfReading #ReadingIntervention #StructuredLiteracy #ReadingSimplified #LiteracyInstruction
Kids who resist reading aren't lazy. They're sick of getting it wrong. I'm speaking on day 1 of the free Close the Reading Gap Summit (Oct 19–25) with Dr. Louisa Moats and more. Free ticket: link.closethereadinggap.com/…
Here is a 3 year-old's first lesson. 10 minutes. He was beaming at the end. Plenty of time left to run, play, and build! youtu.be/WENJEPfJM-Q?si=G9hM…
Here is the just some of the body of 50+ years of evidence that demonstrates that we should not tell beginning readers to look at the pictures or get their mouths ready.
readingsimplified.com/scienc…
We expected the Sold a Story podcast and the SOR movement and 40+ state laws would put an end to anti-science approaches like this. But, alas, no.
In the last month I've heard 2 stories of the 3-cueing method in action, such as this recent PD in a wealthy district (pic below). One the one hand some places are still telling kids that "getting their mouth ready" is a reading strategy and in other places educators are teaching kinders what a fricative is.
Hard to know how to affect change in a bipolar world.
> "if kids aren't being taught to sound out words, then how are they being taught to read?"
Teachers tell students to just guess at the words.
When I say this, people think I mean it metaphorically, but no, I mean students are being told to literally guess at words.
Here's a teacher training video where a teacher demonstrates how she teaches a class of kindergarteners to "read" a word that THEY CAN'T SEE
The teacher refers to this as "reading and analyzing text".
She was taught that guessing at pictures IS reading, and now parrots that nonsense to any other students, parents, and teachers who will listen.
Honored to be a guest on Holly Korbey’s The Bell Ringer. Thrilled to see more convos about enhancing reading instruction! Watch/listen 👇🏾
Don't hold up reading instruction because a kid can't spell the words yet. Reading is multiple choice. Spelling is fill-in-the-blank. Of course it takes longer! Let reading lead. 🏇
Learn more. 👇🏾
Want to hear more from fearless education advocate, analyst, curriculum expert, and twitter maven @karenvaites?
Join us on Wed. 2/18 @ 7pm EST here:
us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi…
Or you could just support kids in attacking MS words; no extra declarative knowledge, no labels: youtu.be/kWv_2soJPhk?si=fVKd…
Is that true? You may not have confidence you've hit a word if it's not in your memory, but you can still flex the vowel to attempt different pronunciations without secure word knowledge. Vocab is certainly associated with set for variability but not the strongest.
Ready to transform your teaching journey? 🙋🏽♀️ Join the Reading Simplified Academy today and ignite that tiny spark 💥 into a blazing path for the rest of your year! 🔥 But act fast – the huge bundle of BONUSES won’t last! ✨ DM us for your link to join! ✨ Wanna learn more &
Wanna learn more & discover the easiest way to teach anyone how to read? Snag our decoding hack here... ReadingSimplified.com/switch… ************ For over two decades, Dr. Ginsberg has been at the forefront of understanding how the brain learns to read. ㅤ Through her
Wanna learn more & discover the easiest way to teach anyone how to read? Snag our decoding hack here... ReadingSimplified.com/switch… ************ Has a student ever said the sounds in a word (such as "cat"/c/-/a/-/t/) only to come up with another word entirely - maybe "tack"
Faster lesson planning? Yes, please! 🙋🏻♀️ Wanna learn more & discover the easiest way to teach anyone how to read? Snag our #1 decoding hack here... ReadingSimplified.com/switch… ************