Archive for August 2011
“The Cue to Reading” Series (Article 10): Creating Effective Lessons for a LD Student
When my son was a few months old and I was a new mom, I had no idea how or when to introduce him to solid foods. I fell asleep one night in the midst of reading an article about the topic. The article explained that solid foods should be introduced in very small bites,…
Read More“The Cue to Reading” Series (Article 9): Strategies for the Three Cueing Systems – Part II
As promised last week, I will share effective strategies for the remaining two cueing systems today. However, I’d like to begin with a story about a powerful way to support struggling readers…that I discovered by accident. Several years ago, I had a third-grade student, Emilia (name changed) who had very few reading skills. She could…
Read More“The Cue to Reading” Series (Article 8): Strategies for the Three Cueing Systems
Two weeks ago, our computers were down and my productivity came to a grinding halt. (Perhaps you noticed that I skipped a week with these articles…) With nothing else to do, we cleaned out our filing cabinets. One large drawer was overstuffed with reading materials from my days in the classroom. “This ought to be…
Read More“The Cue to Reading” Series (Article 7): Journey of a Reading Teacher
It was my husband who first suggested I go for a reading degree when I entered grad school. “Are you kidding?” I replied. “I HATE teaching reading!” It was August and we were on a road trip, heading home after camping for a week on Michigan’s west coast. I was supposed to start grad school…
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“The Cue to Reading” Series (Article 6):
Why Reading Level Is Overrated
One year, when teaching third-grade, I had a half-dozen students enter my class with a “documented” reading level of 7th grade or higher. These reading levels were determined by their second-grade teacher, after she completed her end-of-year testing. Naturally, these parents wanted to be sure their children would continue to be challenged. Several of them…
Read More“The Cue to Reading” Series (Article 5): What Do I Do? Where Do I Go?
A subscriber from St. Louis emailed me a couple weeks ago. She feels her son had a reading disability and was wondering what she should do next. Should she seek a tutor? If so, where could she find one? How could she get a diagnosis? Her questions address the next logical topic to discuss in…
Read More“The Cue to Reading” Series (Article 4): “He’s Just Not Tryin'”
We all have our little nuances and idiosyncrasies. One of mine is my “Rule of Three.” That is, when something comes to my attention three times in a relatively short span of time, I take notice and wonder if the world is trying to tell me something. The Rule of Three has helped me navigate…
Read More“The Cue to Reading” Series (Article 3): When Mistakes are Golden
By now, you may be getting a little “tired” of all of this talk about cueing systems, but these first three articles are synthesizing what I believe to be the most significant information about the reading process. Out of the thousands of hours of training I have had between my master’s degree, several years of…
Read More“The Cue to Reading” Series (Article 2): Cueing Into a Problem / The Most Important Cueing System in Reading
What Is The Most Important Cueing System In Reading? When I ask this question in training sessions (typically for highly experienced teachers), the response from 90% of them is, “Visual!” Then, I open my PowerPoint and display this message: I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg. It is the phaonmneal…
Read More“The Cue to Reading” Series (Article 1): The Three Cueing Systems of Reading
Zimulis. What is this word? How do you say it? How would it fit in a sentence? What is it describing? Do you have ANY ideas? Does this help…“I misplaced my trusty zimulis”? Now you know that a zimulis is a noun. Whatever it is, it’s “trusty,” so maybe it is some type of electronic…
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