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We help educators confidently implement structured literacy through simple routines that connect PA, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and writing into instruction that actually flows.

This is an actual writing sample from a standardized assessment. And it scored within the AVERAGE range. 🤯From a third-g...
10/16/2026

This is an actual writing sample from a standardized assessment. And it scored within the AVERAGE range. 🤯

From a third-grade student.

And this is exactly why standardized writing assessments can be so frustrating!

Because when we look at a score that falls within the average range, it's easy to assume that a student is performing just fine.

But then we look at the actual writing.

And suddenly, that average score doesn't feel quite so reassuring.

Here's the thing about standardized, norm-referenced assessments. They're telling us how a student performed compared to other students in the normative sample, based on the specific tasks and scoring criteria.

They're not necessarily telling us whether a student has the writing skills we want them to have.

And that's an important distinction!

This is why I think it's so important to look beyond the scores and really consider what a student's writing tells us about their instructional needs.

Because regardless of whether this performance is considered statistically average, I can see some pretty clear opportunities for explicit writing instruction!

And one of my favorite places to start is with sentence construction.

If you'd like to take a look at the explicit sentence-writing routine I use with my students, comment SENTENCE and I'll send you the link to learn more about our PD training!

Just because a student knows their letter sounds doesn't mean they can automatically use them when reading. 👀⁠⁠This is s...
10/15/2026

Just because a student knows their letter sounds doesn't mean they can automatically use them when reading. 👀⁠
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This is something I see all the time, especially with my older students who struggle with reading.⁠
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They can tell me what sound a letter makes. They might even be able to decode individual words correctly. But when they start reading connected text, those same skills aren't always automatic.⁠
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And that's an important distinction!⁠
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For students with dyslexia, we need to explicitly teach and strengthen the connections between letters, sounds, and meaning. But we also need to provide enough intentional, repeated practice for those connections to become quick and automatic.⁠
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That's why I continue incorporating sound drills, decoding practice, and opportunities to apply those skills in connected text, even with my older students.⁠
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It's not necessarily about teaching them letter sounds they don't know. It's about helping them access and use those skills efficiently so they can focus more of their attention on understanding what they're reading.⁠
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Want to learn more about dyslexia and how we can better support students who struggle with reading?⁠
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Comment DYSLEXIA and I'll send you the link to my Dyslexia Spotlight PD training!

Ever have students who can spell words perfectly in isolation (like on their spelling test) but then struggle to spell t...
10/15/2026

Ever have students who can spell words perfectly in isolation (like on their spelling test) but then struggle to spell those exact same words correctly at the sentence level?⁠
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If so, you're certainly not alone!⁠
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When students are focusing on spelling words in isolation, they can focus specifically on the connection between the sounds they hear, the visual patterns that represent those sounds, and sometimes also the meaning (like flower vs. flour). ⁠
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Which honestly is pretty complicated on its own. ⁠
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But then once those words get added into context, it creates a whole new level of complexity.⁠
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At the phonological (sound) level, students need to be thinking about more than just the sounds in the word. They also need to think about how many words are in the sentence to create appropriate spacing between words.⁠
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At the orthographic (visual) level, they need to think about the individual letter symbols and patterns in each word, but also capitalization, punctuation, and spacing as visual tools to create meaning in the sentence.⁠
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At the semantic (meaning) level, they need to think about sentence structure, vocabulary usage, and whether they've effectively communicated what they intended to communicate.⁠
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So we've just made this entire task massively more difficult. The goal is to make the spelling process itself so automatic that students aren't thinking as much about that when they move into their connected text writing.⁠
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If you want to learn more about our spelling and sentence-level writing routine, comment "SPELLING" and we'll send you a link to our Spotlight PD training where you can learn more.

One of the things I hear often is that students don't appear to have dyslexia because they look like they are reading we...
10/13/2026

One of the things I hear often is that students don't appear to have dyslexia because they look like they are reading well.⁠
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And that makes sense. When students can generally read at the same level as their peers, how could they have dyslexia?⁠
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The issue is that dyslexia presents itself differently at different ages but also across different profiles. For example, this student's academic scores look pretty solid.⁠
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In fact, her reading fluency and reading comprehension fall well within the average range. Scores falling between the 25th and 75th percentile fall within the average range of the bell curve, so most general education classroom instruction targets that range. ⁠
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So if you had this student in the classroom, there would currently be no red flags. However, when you dig deeper into what her reading actually sounds like and take a look at all of her foundational abilities, you can see something very different emerging.⁠
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Her ability to read words (especially nonsense words) in isolation without context is below age-level expectations. While she did very well reading high-frequency words, she struggled significantly with unfamiliar and nonsense words, meaning she has no strategy other than just "knowing" the word.⁠
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As grade-level expectations continue to increase, this strategy of just "knowing" all the words won't work. She needs a phonetic decoding strategy she can use when her visual memory of a word isn't there. ⁠
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Right now, her phonological awareness ability is falling at the 8th percentile, which is well below the 25th percentile mark, meaning we need to strengthen this ability for her to be able to effectively and efficiently use that symbol → sound neural pathway.⁠
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If you want to learn more about dyslexia, join us inside our on-demand Spotlight PD about dyslexia. Comment "DYSLEXIA" and I will send you a link where you can learn more!

This question actually came up a few times last week with educators I work with and parents of struggling readers. ⁠⁠"Wh...
10/13/2026

This question actually came up a few times last week with educators I work with and parents of struggling readers. ⁠
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"Why are students guessing at words even if they know how to sound them out?"⁠
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For example, reading "everytime" as "everything" or using some of the letters (usually some of the first letters) to make a guess at the word.⁠
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This was especially frustrating for the educators and parents who knew that when they pointed that word out again, the student could actually break it down and read it correctly.⁠
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Basically, what's happening here is that the brain is trying to be efficient. It's wired to find the most efficient ways to do things. If a student is still working on solidifying their ability to use a phonetic decoding strategy and they come to a word they don't know...⁠
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Their brain is mentally calculating the "cost" of decoding that word. Would it be "more efficient" to just take a guess at the word and use context to determine the meaning? For many students, that actually is more efficient, at least in the short term.⁠
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So it's not about laziness; it's about cognitive efficiency. It's simply more efficient to guess. So what we need to do is help students become more automatic and efficient in their decoding process, which requires them to be able to quickly connect letter patterns to sounds, and then blend those sounds quickly to create meaning. Until that process is fully automatic, it is likely that students will continue to guess even with good phonics instruction.⁠
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If you want to learn more about our process, comment "ELEMENTARY" or "SECONDARY" and we'll send you a link to learn more.

October is Dyslexia Awareness Month, and as an educational diagnostician, I get a LOT of questions about dyslexia. ⁠⁠Whe...
10/09/2026

October is Dyslexia Awareness Month, and as an educational diagnostician, I get a LOT of questions about dyslexia. ⁠
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When diagnosing dyslexia, I like to keep it simple. There are two key things I'm looking at:⁠
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1. What does the student's literacy profile look like?⁠
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When considering a student's literacy profile, I'm focusing on their "outcome skills." Outcome skills are specific reading and writing skills that can be easily observed and measured.⁠
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→ I'm looking at whether they can sound out words for reading and spelling (I look at their ability to read real words, nonsense words, and isolated spelling).⁠
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→ I'm looking at their overall fluency and automaticity for phonetically regular words (real and nonsense) as well as phonetically irregular words that they would need to rely on visual/orthographic memory to read. I'm also looking at connected text fluency here.⁠
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→ I'm looking at their reading comprehension.⁠
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From there, I essentially place them onto a grid using word recognition and comprehension on each axis. Dyslexia is specific to a decoding or word recognition need.⁠
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2. What do their foundational literacy abilities look like?⁠
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At this level, I want to understand the underlying neural processes.⁠
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→ I'm looking at their phonological awareness ability (and the automaticity of that skill)⁠
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→ I'm looking at their rapid naming ability (how quickly can they identify specific letter/number patterns?) This is part of orthographic awareness.⁠
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→ I'm looking at their underlying language abilities, including vocabulary (both receptive and expressive), listening comprehension ability, and oral expression.⁠
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If a student is struggling with automatic word recognition caused by difficulty in orthographic (visual) or phonological (sound) processing, they may have dyslexia.⁠
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Of course, we want to look at a complete battery of assessments as well as environmental factors, but this is my quick initial gut check.⁠
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If you're curious to learn more about dyslexia, comment "DYSLEXIA" and I'll send you a link to learn more about our Spotlight PD training on this.

Have you ever had a student who makes great progress in literacy intervention, exits the program, and then ends up right...
10/09/2026

Have you ever had a student who makes great progress in literacy intervention, exits the program, and then ends up right back in intervention the following school year?⁠
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I was having a conversation about this today, and it got me thinking about something I see all the time.⁠
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We're teaching the phonics patterns. We're incorporating vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. Students are demonstrating the skills during their intervention lessons.⁠
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But are they actually learning to apply those skills independently?⁠
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Because there's a big difference between a student being able to successfully complete a phonics activity with us and being able to recognize and use that same pattern when they encounter it in an unfamiliar text.⁠
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And there's an equally big difference between answering comprehension questions with our guidance and independently making meaning from what they've read.⁠
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Now, there are several reasons students might need intervention again, but one of the first things I want to look at is whether the skills we're teaching are actually transferring beyond our lessons.⁠
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Are we teaching students to successfully complete literacy intervention activities, or are we helping them become independent readers and writers?⁠
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That's why I'm so intentional about connecting skills throughout my literacy intervention lessons, using consistent routines, and giving students repeated opportunities to apply what they're learning.⁠
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Because ultimately, I don't want students to need me to walk them through every word, every passage, or every strategy.⁠
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I want them to be able to do those things on their own.⁠
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If you've been wondering how to bring those connections into your own intervention lessons, I have a free training where I walk through exactly how I structure my instruction.⁠
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You'll also get my Structured Literacy Intervention Checklist so you can take a closer look at one of your own lessons.⁠
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Comment ELEMENTARY and I'll point you in the right direction!

During our last 5CCL monthly meeting, one of our educators brought up a student who was struggling to identify the main ...
10/08/2026

During our last 5CCL monthly meeting, one of our educators brought up a student who was struggling to identify the main idea and summarize connected text.⁠
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But as we talked through what she was seeing, another question came up:⁠
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What is actually breaking down first?⁠
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→ Are they misreading words because they can’t decode them?⁠
→ Are they reading the words incorrectly because they don’t know what they mean?⁠
→ Or are they not even noticing that what they read didn’t make sense?⁠
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Those are three very different needs, and they lead to three very different instructional targets.⁠
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So before jumping straight to more phonics, vocabulary, or comprehension strategies, her next step was actually much simpler: see whether the students could identify the words they misread or didn’t know while reading connected text.⁠
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Because if a student doesn’t recognize when they've misread a word or don't know a word, they can’t use all of those strategies we’re teaching them to fix it.⁠
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So, an important question for you to consider: do your students even know they're missing words as they're reading?!⁠
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And if you want help thinking through the next goal or instructional target for your students, comment "5CCL" and we’ll send you the link to learn more.

One of the things I do to keep literacy intervention simple and sustainable is to follow repeatable processes, so I'm no...
10/05/2026

One of the things I do to keep literacy intervention simple and sustainable is to follow repeatable processes, so I'm not constantly reinventing the wheel.⁠
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I always use this 4-Step Process in my literacy intervention:⁠
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1. Review student data - I'm usually looking at a few key data points to get an idea of what exactly is going on for each student. I like to organize the data into one simple view so I can see everyone together (it just helps me feel a little more in control 😅)⁠
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2. Match students to the appropriate intervention approach - I have a few different approaches I like to use depending on student needs. It may be a structured, systematic literacy program/approach, a vocabulary and comprehension-focused approach, targeted skill instruction, or a short-term approach (again, all depending on the need).⁠
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3. Create student groups - I then match my students based on their data and intervention approach with others who have similar needs/profiles.⁠
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4. Begin intervention - Now, within each of these different intervention approaches, I have a consistent framework I use so I'm not reinventing the wheel all the time.⁠
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Now that I've followed this same approach over and over, it just feels like second nature, and I don't have to stress about what that looks like at all. It just feels like a groove.⁠
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If you're curious and want to know more about what this looks like, this is exactly what we're working on in 5CCL, so comment "5CCL" and I'll send you a link where you can learn more about it.

So I had this recurring minor panic every time a parent needed a summary of student progress or an IEP or MTSS/RTI meeti...
10/05/2026

So I had this recurring minor panic every time a parent needed a summary of student progress or an IEP or MTSS/RTI meeting got scheduled where I needed to share my observations of my students' progress.⁠
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The thing is, I know my students, and I always have a good feel for what we're working on and how they're progressing, but pulling something together quickly to share always felt like I was reinventing the wheel and scrambling a bit. ⁠
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Which, of course, was stressful because it always felt like these popped up right in the middle of everything else I was trying to get done. When I had more time, I could always complete some additional assessments and pull something nice together, but those last-minute conversations were really stressing me out!⁠
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So, I put together a Caseload Dashboard where I could see all of my students in one view and then click on each student for a one-page summary of what they're working on and one simple data point I was tracking.⁠
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Things are feeling so much more organized and in control (like I actually have all my ducks in a row) since I started using it. ⁠
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On Monday, October 5th @ 4:00 PM Pacific | 7:00 PM Eastern I'm running a live online workshop for our members of 5CCL Learning Lab so we can build this out together! 30 minutes and you can feel in control of your caseload and your data this year!⁠
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Comment "5CCL" and we'll send you a link to learn more about the Learning Lab!

Address

2821 S Parker Road
Aurora, CO
80014

Opening Hours

Monday 7am - 6pm
Tuesday 7am - 6pm
Wednesday 7am - 6pm
Thursday 7am - 6pm
Friday 7am - 6pm

Telephone

(303) 309-9135

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