Read and Spell Blog

Visual impairment in the classroom
Read and Spell Blog
Visual impairment in the classroom

Visual impairment in the classroom

Visual cues are central to most early childhood education systems. Consider the number of school lessons that revolve around students writing on the blackboard or reading off of photocopied handouts! Every subject, from math/maths to spelling and even geography, requires reading and writing.

That’s why whether visual impairments are moderate, severe or profound, they often interrupt a low vision student’s ability to participate in regular classroom activities.

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How to build a homeschool reading program
Read and Spell Blog
How to build a homeschool reading program

How to build a homeschool reading program

Teaching reading is one of the first big challenges homeschool parents of younger children face. That’s because there’s a lot riding on successful literacy skills development. Learning to read is not only fundamental for the language arts part of your curriculum but necessary for most other subjects you teach.

This article will help you learn more about how reading works (and what phonics and spelling have to do with it), to help you choose the right reading resources and prepare your child for any bumps on the road to becoming a strong reader.

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What are the hardest words to spell?
Read and Spell Blog
What are the hardest words to spell?

What are the hardest words to spell?

If someone asked you to spell appoggiatura, ursprache or xanthosis out loud, how do you think you’d do? If you’ve ever studied Italian, German, Latin or Greek you might have an easier time of it. But for the rest of us, the task would be a considerable challenge.

That’s because all three of these words have roots in other languages and contain infrequent consonant clusters, not to mention sounds that are not typically represented by their corresponding English letters. For this reason, they are considered very hard to spell.

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What are Dolch words?
Read and Spell Blog
What are Dolch words?

What are Dolch words?

Haven’t heard of the Dolch list? Don’t worry. If you’ve ever read Dr. Seuss you know a good portion of it already. In fact, every word in The Cat in the Hat is on the Dolch list.

Dolch words are high frequency English vocabulary commonly used to teach children to read. Learning to recognize them automatically can facilitate fluency in reading.

Think of the most common English articles, prepositions, conjunctions, adjectives, adverbs and verbs (a, and, away, big, blue, can, come, down) and you’ll get a good idea of the list.

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dyslexia and spelling- what's the connections
Read and Spell Blog
Dyslexia and spelling - what's the connection?

Dyslexia and spelling - what's the connection?

Dyslexia is a learning difficulty which often (but not always) affects reading and writing ability, spelling and the sounding out of words.

Children and adults with dyslexia may have highly developed interactive and oral skills and excel at design, problem solving and creative thinking, but they often experience frustration at school given the central role of reading and writing in classroom learning and teaching.

As reading is a receptive skill, the most visible signs can sometimes be related to productive language activities, particularly when it comes to dyslexia and spelling.

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