This PaTTAN webinar featuring Dr. Anita Archer focuses on five high-leverage practices that you can use in your classroom everyday and across multiple content areas. Dr. Archer takes the audience through each routine with lots of examples and opportunities for practice. Grounded in explicit instruction, Dr. Archer shows how foundational skills as well as higher-order…
In this vocabulary and comprehension lesson, Ontario Teacher Kate Winn provides a step-by-step lesson designed to increase and enhance vocabulary and comprehension. Using the picture book Hana’s Hundreds of Hijabs by Razeena Omar Gutta, this lesson plan provides detailed, explicit instruction on using vocabulary from the book and includes the blackline master for a follow-up…
In this brief video from Reading Universe, Morgan Walton highlights a quick teaching tip to remind students to “clip” the schwa sound off phonemes when pronouncing sounds.
In Brain Words, the authors share information about the reading brain, and how teachers can support its development. The book includes science-based, practical classroom activities for the teaching and assessment of reading and writing (including the helpful “Monster Test” which helps to determine a student’s developmental phase). This book is designed for educators in K…
This infographic provides a comprehensive visual guide to structured literacy, an evidence-based approach to teaching language and literacy. By illustrating both the “how” and “what” of structured literacy, the infographic serves as a valuable resource for educators committed to fostering strong foundational literacy skills in all learners. To support printing, there is both a dark…
This is a fabulous collection of cursive writing resources created by the OCDSB Occupational Therapists and Learning Support Services Department. It includes a document with background knowledge of why cursive is important (including research and curriculum links), a slide deck with animated demonstrations of letter formation, and practice sheets for each letter. Note that this…
The Ontario Human Rights Commission’s Right to Read inquiry concluded that running records and reading level assessments have not been effective in identifying students who need additional support or in providing teachers with accurate information to guide instruction. We now know that there are more effective ways to understand student reading skills and ensure that…
Fostering partnerships between school and home is key to supporting strong student outcomes. Jenni vanRees and other educators at Blue Heron Public School (WRDSB) have created this collection of materials to support a home reading program aligned with structured literacy and the science of reading. The materials include:
Far too often, students who struggle with reading and language are given simplified, uninteresting texts. These texts are judged to be “at-the-students’ language or reading level” but deny students access to rich, interesting, age-appropriate text. This guidance document outlines some ideas for fostering conversations around “juicy sentences,” where students learn to deconstruct and reconstruct sentences,…
In the webinar, Margie Gillis and Nancy Eberhardt explored the effective use of syntax in teaching reading and writing. The webinar highlighted the role syntax plays in enhancing language and literacy. Gillis and Eberhardt highlight a “function-first” approach to teaching syntax, a key element of the Ontario Language curriculum. Specific instructional activities to teach syntax…
In this webinar, Nancy Hennessy, Nancy Eberhardt and Sheryl Ferlito unpack syntax instruction. This webinar provides a high-level overview of best practices for syntax instruction. Hennessy and Eberhardt highlight a “function-first” approach that is aligned with the Ontario curriculum – instead of naming and identifying parts of speech, effective syntax instruction involves explicitly teaching students…
This document shows a sample schedule for a language block in grade 1 or 2.
