Resources for Teachers

Recognizing Reading Disabilities

Teacher lesson plans Pre-K-1^st grade https://education.byu.edu/seel

Texts to help with your reading lessons:

The Reading Lesson : Geared towards parents who want to teach their toddlers to read, but it is also useful for new teachers, teachers who don't know where to start, or for remedial lessons for struggling readers. Based roughly on the Orton Gillingham sequences, it breaks down reading into manageable chunks by only introducing the child to a few letters at a time and giving them time to master decoding the letters little by little.

Locating and Correcting Reading Difficulties: A great resource for answering the question, "How do I teach a student with this specific reading challenge?". The book breaks down different challenges, what they may mean about the learner, and what specific lessons you could teach to help target that skill.

The Weighty Word Books: Marketed as SAT prep books, they are actually really useful to help an older reader expand vocabulary. The books are a series of short stories and illustrations that help students remember the meanings of challenging vocabulary words in a very fun way!

How to Teach Spelling: A great resource for breaking apart the various spelling rules, generalizations, and patterns of the English language systematically.

Visualizing and Verbalizing: This is a great resource for the reader who is struggling with comprehension. It breaks down what happens in our minds as we read and provides lesson templates to help the struggling reader improve his/her ability to create mental pictures and fully comprehend a complex text. Supplementary materials are also available.

Angling for Words: A collection of words, nonsense words, sentences, and passages to help you teach or to help students practice decoding words with specific sound and letter patterns.

Recipe for Reading: My go-to for teaching basic letter-sound correspondences and early phonics skills. It follows the Orton- Gillingham letter sequence (introducing letters in groups by shape), and has great information on how to help a young reader remember each new letter and sound concept.

Growing Readers: A useful resource for anyone using a reading workshop model or anyone who wants to maximize the instructional value of a student's sustained reading time. Geared towards primary classrooms, it allows teachers to help students develop strong reading habits and get the most out of their reading. While I would not use this book exclusively, as it does not touch on phonics or the basic decoding aspects of reading necessary at that age, it does help transform silent reading time into more meaningful reading workshop time.

Beginning Reading For Older Students: Useful for the older student who needs basic skills reviewed but sees materials on that level as "babyish". The book contains 30 reproducible books on high interest topics, laid out like comic books.

Pete the Cat Phonics: Who doesn't love Pete the Cat? This is a set of mini books, each designed to help students practice reading words with a specific vowel sound. The Pete the Cat stories make it more interesting than typical phonics readers.

Reading Teacher's Book of Lists: This is a very diverse book. It includes lists of examples for various teaching concepts, such as phonics and homophones, and other practical lists such as study skills, teaching suggestions, recommended reading, and graphic organizers. A great catch-all reading resource.

Fountas and Pinnell Literacy Continuum: A resource to help you understand the madness that is reading levels. It breaks down what each reading level means in terms of what a student is able to do, offers suggestions for moving students up to higher reading levels, and helps you select appropriate books for your students.

The Reading Strategies Book: Specific lesson suggestions for helping students reach a number of goals pertaining to specific reading strategies. Plus, help determining if those goals are appropriate for your particular student.