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TextProject president and CEO Elfrieda H. (Freddy) Hiebert blogs about important issues in reading research and practice.
Frankly Freddy entries (published from 2005 to 2014) have been sorted into five topics of literacy learning and instruction. Click here to download the ebook!
Literature can help inspire us and create community, and read-alouds are currently central in doing so. Students of all ages can benefit from read-alouds; Dr. Hiebert recommends some creative and inspiring stories to share.
Beginning readers have different levels of proficiency, but many may follow a similar path as they learn new words and orthographic patterns. This may not be the case for those with the lowest levels of ability, so curriculum and instruction should take into account the needs of those who depend most on their in-school literacy experiences.
Teachers can help beginning readers master more than half of the 2,500 most frequently occurring word families by focusing on words they have already acquired in oral language and words with high concreteness ratings.
With over 600,000 words in written English, which ones should English Language Arts teachers teach, and how?
Students have trouble learning and retaining lists of unconnected words. Teaching words in networks helps students form connections among the words, bolstering their understanding.
Reading is all about knowledge; it’s not just for practice.
Rare words typically make up only 5% or less of the total words in texts, but it’s often these words that get students anxious about reading.
Words are not only a means of communicating, but a foundation of learning.
A small part of the English vocabulary accounts for the majority of the words in the texts students read across the grades - but some of the words may surprise you.
Some thoughts for Literacy Research Association session: Opening up the ivory tower: Examining the elements of open, digitally engaged scholarship (November 28, 2018, Indian Wells, CA)