Spelling is a key component of reading instruction. Yet, in a time of spell check and LOL, the importance of spelling is often short changed. Learning to spell is essentially a language learning process. We do not remember words simply as strings of letters. Teaching spelling involves teaching about language — its phonemes, graphemes, syllable structures, morphemes, and syntactic structures — and showing students why words are spelled the way they are.

During this hour long webinar, Dr. Louisa Moats discusses:

• The latest research about how children learn to spell
• How spelling supports reading and writing
• How spelling can be used as a diagnostic tool
• A comprehensive approach to teaching spelling that complements reading instruction

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Jasmine Lane is a first generation college graduate and an early-career High School English teacher in Minnesota. In her short time in the classroom, and through her own personal history, Ms. Lane knows all too well the negative and life-long impact that poor literacy skills have on students.  In her blog, “Literacy: The Forgotten Social Justice Issue,” Ms. Lane shares that her grandfather, Willie Lane, did not learn to read until he was in his 30s because he would have been “attacked, threatened, or possibly murdered for daring to be a Black Man reading in the Jim Crow south.”

Linda Diamond, president of CORE and author of the Teaching Reading Sourcebook, sat down with Ms. Lane, just a few short weeks after her beloved grandfather passed away, to talk further about how today’s failure to apply the science of reading to instruction continues to put young people, particularly those who have been marginalized and traditionally underserved, at a disadvantage and ill equipped to reach their full potential. READ MORE

This is the first 30-minute video in an ongoing series of free on-demand professional learning videos from CORE and Pivot Learning* that will feature expert advice about supporting students with word reading difficulties.

School closures due to COVID-19 this spring highlighted the importance of maintaining high quality-instruction for students with word reading difficulties. As districts determine how to provide instruction this school year, former Dyslexia Specialist for the Oregon Department of Education and CORE’s Director of Literacy, Dr. Carrie Thomas Beck, shares three must-have features of effective instruction for students with word reading difficulties, including students with dyslexia, that can be used in both in-person and remote lessons. READ MORE

Enhance your practice with CORE’s 2020-21 free professional learning webinar series. From improving instruction for English Learners and lessons learned from remote learning to math interventions within Multi-Tiered Systems of Support, our webinars are a convenient and free way to build your skills. Please share these webinars with your team. Everyone is welcome!

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Pivot Learning and UnboundEd have created a free Equity Reset Toolkit that provides district leadership teams resources for a nine-week data collection and analysis process focused on equitable learning recovery in K-12 ELA and math. Download the toolkit to create a data-driven equitable education recovery plan for restructuring or building systems to support equitable ELA and math instruction that can be adapted for in-person, remote, or blended learning.

Watch this hour-long on-demand webinar to learn how to use the Equity Reset Toolkit to discover unfinished instruction needs as a result of school closures and how to develop a plan to address these needs equitably. READ MORE