K-12 For Educators

Concrete poetry is a visual and audio experience on paper. Letters, punctuation marks and words are creatively arranged to form an image. The viewer instantly recognizes the subject from the shape...

Students are often fed new lessons every week in a given subject. The process of observing, dictating and memorizing, though effective, can get tedious after a while. Teachers can use learning...

Many people have trouble making certain oral sounds. Speech problems can often be aided by practicing making the target sounds to improve the muscle function of the lips, tongue and jaw and...

Evan-Moor is the publisher of numerous educational publications used by teachers and parents. The company was established in 1979 and is highly regarded for quality educational materials. It...

Phonics is the written representation of spoken language. Knowledge of phonics allows readers to decode (sound out) words, such as knowing that the word "ship" is pronounced /sh/ /i/ /p/ and not...

Vocabulary is important for reading comprehension and for communication. But memorizing vocabulary words is not an especially engaging activity, so it's not the best way for students to develop...

The periodic table of elements was first created by Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869. Mendeleev realized that by arranging the elements such that each had a higher atomic number than the one to its left,...

Fourth grade spelling games can add some fun to a subject that tends to become monotonous. Traditional spelling instruction centers around writing the words or sentences that contain the word and...

Teaching English to children serves many purposes. Properly prepared English lessons teach students how to write down their thoughts in print for effective communication. An English class can also...

Word puzzles are a fun way to reinforce spelling and vocabulary lessons. They can be used for language arts, but also for vocabulary lists in any subject. They also make a great way to study and...

Learning spelling words in elementary school can be fun with the right games and activities to keep students' brains charged and focused. Even though sight and written repetition helps children...

This article is about strategies that can be used to teach English Learners. SDAIE stands for Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English. Living in such a diverse country, you are seeing...

Reading is a skill that, though necessary, can be taxing and mundane. If you are a parent or an educator who is attempting to teach young children to read, make it interesting and interactive. The...

A word wall is an interactive display of words used in a book, season, month and so on. Words walls allow students to practice phonetics, spelling and language conventions, and are a great way to...

Most people who have poor reading skills lack understanding of speech sounds as they occur in words, letters and groups of letters. Poor reading skills continue due to infrequent practice, strong...

English as a Second Language students can acquire knowledge and understanding of the English language when they are immersed in its vocabulary. Providing different scenarios and activities for...

Students must master specific skills to become successful readers. Successful readers decode words quickly, have knowledge of vocabulary and use expression, proper speed, and intonation. Good...

Studies at Stanford University and elsewhere indicate that music can help develop a student's skills, including reading and grammar abilities. Students can sing along to the songs you pick and...

Learning how to read is an essential part of a child's education, because the ability to read fluently and comprehend what is written is foundational to all other subject areas. Therefore, it is...

Sight words are high-frequency words that students encounter in text every day. A strong sight word vocabulary is essential to overall comprehension. Many sight words are irregularly spelled, such...

Aside from moving to Spain or Latin America, the best way to learn Spanish vocabulary is to teach students using interactive games and role playing. Give more associative meaning to Spanish...

Sight words are words that early readers should recognize "on sight." Most are common words such as "is" and "can." Kindergarten is the perfect grade level for students to begin working on these...

Writing each spelling word three times, using them in a sentence and reciting them out loud are time-honored ways of learning how to spell. Why not liven your spelling lessons by including some...

Learning a new language like German requires a lot of practice. Students need opportunities to listen to it, speak it, read it and write it. They need to understand the grammar and to remember the...

Wall words are strips of card stock, or other paper, that are placed on a word wall. Wall words usually follow a particular theme, and are used to better educate students on a variety of topics....

Sight words are words that appear frequently in written text and are considered necessary to decipher meaning from the written word. Although some sight words can be decoded by letter-sound...

Before students can recognize words, they must be able to identify letters and see the difference between letters, words and sentences on a page. Word recognition comes through repetition. To...

Sight words are those used frequently in reading. They are found on almost every page of text that a child will read. Knowledge of these words is essential for reading fluency. Children need to be...

Learning to read is a process of combining a variety of skills that lead to sounding out, blending and decoding words, and fluency. Beginning reading skills are learned in sequence, then are...

Children in 2nd grade are developing their reading, spelling and comprehension skills. A student in 2nd grade needs constant practice in decoding sounds, learning patterns, blending sounds into...

The Internet is becoming a prominent source for information nowadays. It is likely that a majority of households no longer have dictionaries and thesauruses because it is so easy to access these...

Reading fluency plays an important role in how well someone comprehends what they read. Fluency involves the rate, accuracy and prosody (proper phrasing and expression) of reading. Fluent readers...

Word find puzzles are used by many people. Often teachers will create word find puzzles to give to students to help them learn new vocabulary terms. Adults use these puzzles as well. For example,...

Sight words are also known as outlaw words, Dolch words or high frequency words. They are the most commonly used words in written text, and/or are words that are impossible to decode (sound out)....

"Sight words" are words that can't be decoded, or sounded out, or words that are so common that it is best to learn them by sight. Sometimes the two variations overlap, as with the word "the."...

The ability to easily recognize and read sight words increases fluency and comprehension skills. It is easier for someone to remember what they've read when they do not have to struggle to decode...

Phonics is the most acceptable way to teach reading because it is research-based and proven to work for the vast majority of students. Phonics emphasizes the individual sound(s) that represent...

Music in the classroom can grab students' attention and create stimulating lessons. Music is an important tool for students who are just learning English or those who are native speakers. For new...

Cell phones can be an excellent educational tool to teach any subject. I teach adult immigrants English as a Second Language. Most of my students do not have a computer or Internet access at home,...

Dyslexic students lack the phonemic awareness skills they need to begin reading. Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear sounds in words, then change them to make new words or produce rhyming...

Most poor readers rely too heavily on the reading strategy they first learned, such as the use of context and picture clues, that they exclude other strategies that might be more appropriate. To...

Preschoolers are at just the right age to begin learning basic English principles. They are eager to learn and hear what you have to teach them. Although they may seem to be more interested in...

Reading games are a wonderful way to encourage students to practice their phonics, vocabulary and comprehension skills. They are also an effective way to engage other students in a meaningful way...

When educators talk about phonics, they are referring to the explicit teaching of the relationships between phonemes (the sounds of language)and graphemes (the written representations of language)...

Find out how the students' reading comprehension is in their native language. The tests your district uses to assign them ESL status should give you some information, or you can find some...

To teach irregular vowel sounds, think of several words with the vowel sound, teach the words as sight words, and create a word bank with irregular vowel sounds. Have students work on irregular...

Make anagrams by moving the letters around until some sort of pattern is made, starting with words that are easier to figure out and using Web-based programs to practice. Try to come up with...

Teach sight words, which are words that don't follow the normal rules of phonics, by encouraging daily practice and the use of flash cards. Use repetitive review through daily reading practice to...

People with learning disabilities frequently have difficulty with short-term memory, which affects the ability to process information and diminishes reading comprehension. This is because people...

Improving a vocabulary score on the SAT can be done by taking practice SAT tests to become more familiar with the format, studying root words, prefixes and suffixes to help narrow down the meaning...