Now that Hurricane Irma has past, I’m riding home to Ft Lauderdale. VocabularySpellingCity is headquartered in South Florida so we shut the office last week and everyone scurried like ants to safety. In my case, my “port” was a dog-friendly
Improving Reading Comprehension through Vocabulary Retention
Vocabulary is responsible for 70% of reading comprehension problems in elementary schools. And while the research is clear on what most students require to build vocabulary (12 spaced multimodal encounters with a word), many schools ignore the research and reading scores suffer.
Our Journey to VocabularySpellingCity
SpellingCity’s Journey to VocabularySpellingCity At VocabularySpellingCity, we went through a transition, moving from being a spelling program to one focused on vocabulary-building and reading comprehension. Here’s our story from the beginning. I had a few goals in 2010 when I was starting SpellingCity, as I called
Building Phonological, Phonics, and Early Reader Skills
VocabularySpellingCity is broadly used in upper elementary grades (over 10% in the US!) and now has added Sound It Out, which strengthens our offering for primary grades. Sound It Out uses the Interactive Sound Boxes, a powerful learning tool invaluable to primary grade teachers and, not
Elementary Students: Owning the Learning
One of the brightest trends that I see in education today is a broad nationwide move to have students own their learning and to adopt a growth mindset. I’m particularly encouraged to see that this is a distinct trend in elementary schools. In
Students: Creating Lists, Owning Learning
Everyone would like it if students took more “ownership” of their learning. Students would like it, and so would parents and teachers. VocabularySpellingCity makes it easy to give students more accountability for their own learning. Once they’ve chosen a book
Educational Tech Career Days: Building on the Hour of Code Movement
In my visits to elementary schools, especially the Title I schools with deeply disadvantaged students, I often wonder what more we can do for the students who are not getting the broad exposure and stimulation that will prepare them for success. One
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
Mother’s Day Wishes from the Mayor of VocabularySpellingCity
To celebrate Mother’s Day, the mayor of VocabularySpellingCity reviews her emphasis on grammar and his interest in language arts style guides. “Frankly, Mom would have loved Mary Norris, a copywriter at The New Yorker. She’s known as the Comma Queen”