Writing, for most of us, is deeply personal, and feels like a reflection of who we are, how we are perceived. So often, providing feedback on your children’s writing assignments feels like a losing battle, doesn’t it? If you’re too
Automaticity in Word Learning: That’s the Goal
Students who read words, but don’t understand them, often struggle with comprehension. Tim Rasinski is a renowned professor of literacy education whose research on reading fluency and word study has made him a literacy hero to many. Below, he shares
Our Journey to Vocabulary Matters
The lack of vocabulary accounted for 70% of reading comprehension problems in a group of 4th graders, according to the National Research Council. Is your elementary school satisfied with your students’ reading comprehension? Most elementary schools are not. I’m writing to
Help Us Help You: You, Your Students, Your School
Help Me … Help You! Remember that funny scene and line from the film Jerry Maguire? It came to mind this morning when I came into the office early and participated in a major software release for VocabularySpellingCity. Today we
Vocabulary Building for Elementary School Students
I’m just back from the International Literacy Conference and I was struck my some apparent elementary ELA industry trends: Principals, literacy coaches, and teachers all seemed to be moving away from basal readers as core curriculum. More often, they are
Teacher Talk: What they are saying to us
The Question: We asked of our users is to just tell us something about how they use VocabularySpellingCity. Here’s a collection of comments. I use spellingcity on a daily basis. I assign assignments or let students choose activities to practice words.
Science4Us.com Wins BESSIE Award for Best Science Concepts
Science4Us, VocabularySpellingCity’s sister site, has won a BESSIE Award for the Best Science Concepts Website. Science4Us is a standards-based, digitally delivered, early learning (K-2) science program. This is the second honor for Science4Us this month! It is a CODiE Finalist as a Best Science
Hacks for Learning with VocabularySpellingCity
Here are some of the best learning hacks we’ve added to VocabularySpellingCity over the last few years. Enjoy, and may your students benefit. 1. Vocabulary and Writing. Students need both to build their vocabulary and to practice writing. A teacher in Davie,
Vocabulary: Shades of Meaning
Since building student vocabulary skills is one of the big development areas for our company, I’m thinking a lot about how to build elementary vocabulary skills in a more rigorous and nuanced fashion. Today, I’m writing about nuances of meaning but more
Educational Technology of Yesteryear
At VocabularySpellingCity headquarters, we collect vintage educational technology. We like to remember that we are not the first generation that is “revolutionizing” education. The leveraging and integration of technology into our lives has been a thrilling challenge and adventure for