Phonics skills are foundational to reading and spelling and necessary for fluency and comprehension. All students benefit from developing these skills. However, they need a program that can be tailored to meet their individual needs. Word Warm-ups Live is the perfect solution.
Read more Many students need extra phonics support to build a solid foundation for reading success. Developing solid phonics skills can be a long journey, with students in the same groups or classes each requiring focus on different elements and needing varying levels of support. Teachers face the challenge of addressing each student’s unique needs within the same classroom, often with limited time built into their schedule to do so.
Read more It's now well past February, but the remnants of Valentine's Day still linger in my couch cushions. The handmade cards are always my favorite ones to find… especially the ones wishing a "Happy Valantine's Day." I asked my first grader if he knew what makes the word Valentine so hard to spell. He guessed, "Because it's a long word," which is half right. Long words are usually multisyllabic, and multisyllabic words usually have a schwa. The schwa sound—such as the one on the first "e" in Valentine—is notorious for making words difficult to read and spell.
Read more Do your students use Word Warm-ups Live to improve their phonics skills? If so, you may have noticed some changes in the program’s appearance and functionality. Here are the exciting updates we’ve recently made to Word Warm-ups Live, our phonics intervention accessible to any student with a Read Live license.
Read more As another year in my Read Live reading lab winds down, I've noticed an uptick in my third graders' motivation. Many of them had been "saving" certain story topics for last, patiently waiting to read the stories that interested them the most. They're thrilled that the time has finally come. The Exploding Toads story, in particular, has been worth the wait!
Read more Phonics skills are foundational to reading fluently and with comprehension. It's essential for reading teachers to determine which students need phonics support and what that support should look like. Read Naturally is here to support your students’ phonics needs every step of the way—from assessment, to intervention, to ongoing skill maintenance.
Read more The renewed enthusiasm over the past few years for phonics instruction has been heartening. I have believed in, and therefore taught, phonics skills since the beginning of my teaching career in 1970. (In fact, I am the proud owner of a well-worn 1967 edition of A Guide to Teaching Phonics, by June Orton.) Phonemic awareness and basic phonics skills are essential foundations on which students build toward the ultimate goal of reading: comprehension. So, through the phonics wars and beyond I continued to teach phonics to my students (and I still do today).
Read more Word Warm-ups Live develops accuracy and automaticity in decoding using a modified version of the Read Naturally Strategy. Students work on short audio-supported phonics exercises for as little as 10 minutes a day as reading warm-ups, or up to 30 minutes a day as an intervention.
We recently added a third level of content to Word Warm-ups Live, making the program a more comprehensive phonics curriculum. Check out the Word Warm-ups Live Basics webinar to learn more about this powerful phonics program.
Read more Over the past couple of years, we've made several enhancements to Read Live. We've added new programs, new content, and new features with the intention of helping as many students as possible succeed. All Read Live users have access to these enhancements at no additional cost. Are you aware of everything available to you as a Read Live user?
Read more A new page on our website contains audio examples of the phonics sounds students will attempt during the Word Warm-ups Live Assessment and work on in the Word Warm-ups Live exercises. Educators may use this guide to help score the assessment and to understand pronunciation of the patterns in the exercises.
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Share your student’s success story—nominate him or her for our Star of the Month award. Win a Barnes & Noble gift card for the student and a Read Naturally gift certificate for your class!
