All this talk about the Science of Reading could easily stress you out when you don’t know what it is.
The Science of Reading is simply a body of scientifically-based research about reading and issues related to reading and writing. It is not a program or one curriculum. It is just research about reading and the issues some students face when learning how to read and write.
Orton-Gillingham
Dr. Samuel Orton was a neuropsychiatrist and pathologist and Anna Gillingham was a gifted educator and psychologist. Orton and Gillingham trained teachers and published instructional materials after researching reading failure and language processing difficulties.
The Orton-Gillingham approach was created for remediating the language processing problems of individuals with dyslexia.
What do I do during small groups?
This is NOT Guided Reading, which groups students by reading levels. Instead, we are grouping students by phonics skill after giving a purposeful assessment.
There is so much to nerd out on this body of research. But, you need something something simple and to the point. Preferably written by a veteran teacher, not some random company that never waited 5 hours to go the bathroom.
Your Kindergarten, First and Second Graders need small group instruction aligned with the Science of Reading.
You need NO PREP resources that you can use ALL year! Quick assessments, decodable passages, and fun phonics activities.
Take it from a teacher who has cried in the bathroom because she was told her lesson plans weren’t good enough. You can have an easier year and see amazing growth just be implementing phonics small groups.
Learn more about my background here or take a dive into learning more about phonics groups here.
Happy teaching,
Miss. Whimsy