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Young father talking and laughing with preschool son

Oral Language: Expanding Your Child’s Vocabulary

Talking to your child helps expand vocabulary, develop background knowledge, and inspire a curiosity about the world – all of which help with learning to read! Here are some simple activities you can do at home to get your child ready to read.

Elementary teacher offering high-five encouragement to student

Organizing Schools Around Learning

Many pressures pull schools away from a coherent set of organizational practices that enable high achievement. The most significant one is the traditional way schools have been organized around isolated, individual, and autonomous practice. To organize schools around learning requires a deep belief that all students are capable of achievement and that it is the responsibility of the school to ensure that they do.

Orton–Gillingham: What You Need to Know

Orton–Gillingham: What You Need to Know

Orton–Gillingham was the first teaching approach specifically designed to help struggling readers by explicitly teaching the connections between letters and sounds. Many reading programs include Orton–Gillingham ideas, including a “multisensory” approach, which is considered highly effective for teaching students with dyslexia.

Our Video Interviews with Newbery Medal Winners

Our Video Interviews with Newbery Medal Winners

Over the years, Reading Rockets has had the opportunity to interview many beloved children’s authors and illustrators. Here, we share our video interviews with winners of the prestigious Newbery Medal and Honor Awards. 

Elementary boy in yellow plaid shirt taking a test

Parents’ Guide to Standardized Testing

Standardized testing is one form of assessment used in schools. Find out about standardized tests, how and why schools use them, and how you can support your child in this article for parents.
Patterns and Categorizing

Patterns and Categorizing

Children begin using their senses to recognize patterns and categorize things at a young age — skills that play an important role in early learning. This tip sheet provides some simple activities, as well as recommended books, that parents can use to help their kids build pattern recognition and categorization skills in science and math.

Young boy looking at camera with his chalk drawing in the background

Paving the Way to Kindergarten for Young Children with Disabilities

Entering kindergarten can a joyful but also an anxious time, particularly for parents of children with disabilities. These best practices can help make for a smoother transition: using a collaborative team approach to involve families, setting transition goals, and focusing on the needs and strengths of individual children.
PBS and Autism Awareness

PBS and Autism Awareness

Learn about and watch some of the compelling in-depth news stories and documentaries about autism developed by public broadcasting.

PBS Kids and Autism Awareness

PBS Kids and Autism Awareness

PBS Kids has been a leader in autism awareness, developing original programming for television, web, and mobile platforms. Learn about the children’s program and find links to games for kids and companion resources for parents and educators.

Peer Support Programs for Students with Autism

Peer Support Programs for Students with Autism

Regardless of the grade level or the area of need, peers have been crucial in helping students with autism spectrum disorder to succeed in typical school and community activities. Here are some suggestions for using peer supports in your school.

Performance Reading

Performance Reading

Research has shown that fluent oral reading learned through performance reading leads boosts engagement and strengthens comprehension. Learn how to integrate performance reading activities into your classroom.

Elementary boy in yellow plaid shirt taking a test

Phonemic Awareness Assessment

An informal assessment of phonemic awareness, including what the assessment measures, when is should be assessed, examples of questions, and the age or grade at which the assessment should be mastered.

kindergarten teacher helping students make the sounds in words

Phonemic Awareness Instruction

Alphabetics is a term for the letter-sound elements of learning to read, including phonemic awareness and phonics. In this summary, find out what practices for teaching alphabetics have been proven effective by research.

kindergarten teacher helping students make the sounds in words

Phonemic Awareness: An Introduction

Phonemic awareness is the ability to identify, hear, and manipulate the individual sounds in spoken words. Manipulating the sounds in words includes blending, stretching, or otherwise changing words.

kindergarten teacher helping students make the sounds in words

Phonemic Awareness: Watch & Learn

These short video clips give you the chance to watch and learn effective phonemic awareness activities. Many of the video clips are from Reading Rockets’ PBS television series Launching Young Readers.
Phonemic Awareness in Young Children

Phonemic Awareness in Young Children

Research shows that the very notion that spoken language is made up of sequences of little sounds does not come naturally or easily to human beings. The small units of speech that correspond to letters of an alphabetic writing system are called phonemes. Thus, the awareness that language is composed of these small sounds is termed phonemic awareness.

Elementary boy in yellow plaid shirt taking a test

Phonic Elements: Assessment

An informal assessment of phonic elements, including what the assessment measures, when is should be assessed, examples of questions, and the age or grade at which the assessment should be mastered.

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