It’s Testimonial Tuesday! 🎉 Each week leading up to the release of our book, Reading Assessment Done Right, we will be sharing one of the thoughtful endorsements received from a respected professional in the field. ⭐️ Thanks to Jan Hasbrouck for this week’s kind words! 📝

PRE-ORDERS OPEN! 🎉🎉🎉 Not only do we have a final cover for our book, but Stephanie Stollar and I can also share that the foreword is being written by the amazing Pam Kastner - what an honour for us - AND that pre-orders are now open on Scholastic & Amazon!

A successful reading intervention for older students! You’re not going to want to miss my conversation with these dedicated @nearnorthdsb.bsky.social educators! reading-roadtrip.castos.com/episodes/s4-...

🚗 This week, Kate welcomes Dr. Tiffany Hogan to explore Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). They dig into what DLD is, how it relates to dyslexia, signs educators can watch for at different grade levels, and how to support students in the classroom 🎧 reading-roadtrip.castos.com/episodes/s4-...

🚗 What is implementation science, and why should educators care about it? In this new episode, Dr. Katlynn Dahl-Leonard breaks down how this field can help close the gap between literacy research and classroom practice. reading-roadtrip.castos.com/episodes/s4-...

Dr. Sarah Lupo shares how to support adolescent readers across subjects with practical, research-informed strategies. We discuss 5 major challenges that make texts tough for students & tools for scaffolding instruction. reading-roadtrip.castos.com/episodes/s4-...

K-2 teachers: Don’t miss the latest from @lindsaykemeny.bsky.social, diving deep into specific elements of her day, with minute-by-minute advice around arrival routines, phonics, close reading, writing, small groups/centers & read-alouds. P.S. I’ll be giving away a copy next week on Insta!

How on earth did I miss this??? Notifications ON…

New! Irish educator & researcher @readwritejen.bsky.social explores how young children develop the ability to make inferences & how educators can explicitly support this essential skill. Full of playful, practical strategies & research-backed insights. reading-roadtrip.castos.com/episodes/s4-...

🚗 Ep 1 is here! We kick off Season 4 w Leslie Laud of thinkSRSD for a chat on transforming writing instruction from K to high school. Discover how this evidence-based approach is building confidence in classrooms & reducing teacher workload. reading-roadtrip.castos.com/episodes/s4-...

I used a First Sound Fluency progress monitoring form to see where our Year 1 K students are in relation to the Beginning of Year benchmark for when they return in the fall. 🌟 100% of the students are already at or above benchmark 🔵 89% above 🟢 11% at #StructuredLiteracy

🚘 Reading Road Trip is back for a fourth season! podcast.idaontario.com

Interesting EOY K screening tidbit… Only ONE student w composite score below benchmark: Phoneme Segmentation Fluency at benchmark Nonsense Word Fluency above benchmark (was below at MOY) But: Letter Naming Fluency score of 3. Very successful reader w/o letter names (yet).

I’m sure you’re eagerly awaiting the book I’m cowriting with Stephanie Stollar on reading assessment for frontline educators 😉 but Stephanie has this brand new book with Sarah Brown available NOW and it is a must-read for school/district leaders! 😍

Just one of the dyslexia myths @readwritejen.bsky.social is debunking in her latest Substack post. Have you subscribed yet? readwritejen.substack.com/subscribe?ut...

So excited for this! Dr. Stephanie Stollar and Kate Winn! What a dynamic duo!!

The news is out - coming in January from me & Stephanie Stollar via Scholastic! We get so many questions from teachers about reading assessment, and this book covers everything you need to know! {Image is a placeholder; actual cover design to be revealed soon!}

Any guesses what Stephanie Stollar and I were both doing at this very moment? Hint: we’re hard at work collaborating on something, and all will be revealed at the IDA Ontario #LitLearn2025 conference in Toronto next weekend! (Of course we will share on social media afterwards so stay tuned!)

The Easter Bunny came early with my copy of @lindsaykemeny.bsky.social’s 7 Mighty Moves Reading Resources from Scholastic! K-3 educators who have read 7 Mighty Moves will appreciate this companion book with 320 pages of resources to support all 7 moves in the classroom. ❤️

Excellent episode with an extremely knowledgeable guest! This was my treadmilll listen yesterday and was worth every minute. @j-metsala.bsky.social

Not actually a flex… “Classrooms went from spaces where we, as teachers, pre-taught students how to do things like add two-digit numbers, multiply fractions & order decimals, to spaces where students figured this out on their own with the support of their random groups.” 🤔 1/2

It makes me so happy to see amazing literacy bulletin boards like these in my colleagues’ rooms. These ones are from Grade 6/7 - imagine what rock stars my current K students will be in writing and morphology by the time they get to that class?!

Year 1 (PreK) students at benchmark for phonemic awareness: Beginning of year: 43% Middle of year: 89% This was just with Tier 1, whole group phonics instruction. Ongoing now: targeted small group instruction to close gaps for the few students who didn’t meet benchmark.

95% of the Year 2 kindergarten students at our school are at or above benchmark on Acadience Middle of Year screening. If that isn’t an endorsement for explicit and systematic phonics instruction (we use UFLI) I don’t know what is.

This sounding out and recoding is absolute 🎶 to my ears! Kids used to sound much smoother when they were following a pattern & guessing using pictures - no sounding out necessary when you aren't really reading! - but this is exactly what we want to hear! Shared w permission.

❤️ to see this! And it also wouldn’t have happened if you were not an educator open to change!

Thanks for this new book, hot off the press @kristigraber.bsky.social - can’t wait to learn more about Executive Function!

Related: this is one of the most impactful items supporting our kindergarten program. Our seating plan is incredibly strategic (based on many factors), and we adapt it throughout the year as necessary.

“It is showing empathy - not cruelty - to assign students to the seat that maximizes their attention, not least because it relieves them from the immense social pressure of having to choose between friends and learning.” So many practical ideas for instruction from @mrzachg.bsky.social!

So hard to choose just one quote… “All of this indicates that using time and resources to improve students’ academic achievement directly might well be a better agent of psychological change than psychological interventions themselves.”

Not a bad way to start your Saturday morning. 🙂

This new book from @blakeharvard.bsky.social is SO good. My mind is spinning with ways to get this info to our intermediate/senior teachers especially - e.g., specific ways to incorporate & improve retrieval practice & spaced practice (incl exit tickets). Fascinating & easy to read!

We are continuing our soft launch of thinkSRSD at our school with a K-8 focus on gist sentences throughout all subject areas for the month of February…and did someone say “prizes”?! 🎁

Christopher Such’s @suchmo83.bsky.social first book holds a special place in my ❤️- the first SoR book study I facilitated! His follow-up is packed with valuable research-to-practice ideas for teachers & school leaders. Note UK Primary covers our K-6; lots for our Junior teachers here too!

The Important Canadians unit from ONlit has 2 lessons to support Black History Month - or for any time of year! Lessons on Viola Desmond & Oscar Peterson include slides, read-aloud text (can be printed for older students), vocab & comp questions. onlit.org/resource/imp...

To be successful writers, children need to learn ✏️Letter formation ✏️Spelling ✏️Composition This can all begin in kindergarten. These UFLI dictated sentences support letter formation & spelling, and we use thinkSRSD to develop early composition skills as well.

What a privilege it is to watch a child independently read their very first book - after a lot of hard work! Truly an example of the difference the home/school partnership can make. I had tears in my eyes and I know his parents are just as proud! (Shared with permission)

Today we explored The Mitten using our beautiful new Island Felt Co. set ❄️Read-aloud ❄️Used felt pieces for retell/sequencing as whole group lesson ❄️Wrote our gist sentence together (see thinkSRSD) ❄️Made book & felt set available at playtime ❄️Writing task to follow!

I can’t wait for this book, MTSS for Reading Improvement: A Leader’s Toolkit for School Wide Success, by Sarah Brown and Stephanie Stollar!

A time-lapse video of today’s Word Work with cookie sheets & magnetic letters! UFLI recommends 6 minutes; in the Ontario kindergarten context we spend about 12 & save the connected text step for small group to maximize whole group time. These kiddos are 🌟🌟🌟!

I just finished listening while out doing some chores. Both of you touched on a number of things I've been thinking about too! I had a few extra listeners, while I was outside too!

Check out these FREE videos from the recent Bright Beginnings conference for preservice educators. @mitchellbrookins.bsky.social @hollylanephd.bsky.social @devinkearns.bsky.social Anita Archer @mrspallone.bsky.social ...what a treasure trove! docs.google.com/document/d/1...

We always love to read @somerandomclown.bsky.social’s takeaway threads from our #ReadingRoadTrip episodes. Thanks for listening and engaging!

🛣️ Surprise! Special bonus #ReadingRoadTrip episode! Buckle up and join me and @unamalcolm.bsky.social for a candid conversation about all things reading! We share our "road bumps" and "refuels" along the road to reading for all. 🎧 Listen reading-roadtrip.castos.com

Thanks to @katewinn.bsky.social for putting together this fantastic 5-page FAQ resource filled with answers to very common questions that arise when discussing using UFLI in Ontario Kindergarten classrooms. Download the resource at her website: thismomloves.ca/ufli-in-onta...

2024 highlights from IDA Ontario were sent out today - so many things to be excited about, and here are two I was personally involved with. 🎉 More #ReadingRoadTrip and a new Ontario kindergarten curriculum coming in 2025!

Even better than a Christmas gift - what a pleasure to chat with Dr. Susan Brady this morning! I feel very validated in my understanding of phonological and phonemic awareness as I forge ahead on a few different projects. 💕

If you are a reading interventionist or special education teacher/consultant, this one is for you: guidance for interventions with students who struggle with word reading, comprehension or a mix of both (at early and later levels), including really helpful sample schedules. 😍

Another great book from Lyn Stone! Such helpful information on teaching linguistics to students - with what I’m sure is a ton of new learning for most teachers as well! A few of my favourite takeaways follow in this 🧵: