Free Resources for Teachers

  Explore our collection of free classroom resources designed to support foundational literacy skills, including a colorful handwriting poster that reinforces proper writing posture; a helpful spelling errors chart that explains the three main types of spelling mistakes; and student-friendly fluency bookmarks, complete with…

By Leigh Buettler, M.S.Ed. I consistently hear from teachers that their curriculum doesn’t really include writing instruction. Sure, there are writing prompts, but there often aren’t full lesson plans educators can use to actually teach students how to write. On top of this, many…

By Leigh Buettler, M.S.Ed. A few years ago, I decided to learn how to knit, and took advantage of easy access to a local yarn shop that offered a variety of high-quality classes. I began with a true beginner’s course and a simple project:…

By Leigh Buettler, M.S.Ed. and Elizabeth Keenan, M.Ed. Figuring out what works for our students, and what doesn’t, is part of the art and science of teaching. All practicing educators have experienced a time when a thoughtfully designed lesson doesn’t result in the student…

By Peggy Price, M.Ed., F/OGA, Director of the Orton-Gillingham Institute and Leigh Buettler, M.Ed., Director of Professional Learning In November, we wrote about the importance of clear mastery criteria and lesson pacing, and recently wrote about the instructional hierarchy, or the five stages of…

Understanding the Hierarchy of Learning can be a game-changer in how we approach teaching and assessing our students. By intentionally guiding them from acquisition to generalization, we can help them not only master skills but also apply them in meaningful, real-world ways – and…

By Peggy Price, M.Ed., F/OGA, Director of the Stern Center Orton-Gillingham Institute and Leigh Buettler, M.Ed., Director of Professional Learning Have you ever noticed that you can’t help but read words when you come across them? Whether we see text on a cereal box,…

As the school year winds down into spring and summer break looms on the horizon, we often find ourselves entertaining both our anticipation of the future and our reflections on the past year. It’s a perfect time to engage our students in some of…

One of the most critical considerations we can take as educators is how to work with our students’ brains instead of against them. Cognitive Load Theory, or CLT, is based on the work of educational psychologist John Sweller and his colleagues in the 1980s…

Data is an incredibly important tool in education, as we think about what our students currently know and are able to do, and the goals we set for them in terms of how we want them to progress and develop their knowledge and skills.…

Curious about the power of syllable types? Read on to explore effective ways to incorporate syllable-types into your instruction, along with two free resources.

In this free, recorded webinar, Peggy Price discusses common myths and misinformation about how we learn to read and how our brains work to enable reading.

Reading comprehension is the ultimate goal we have for our students. These professional learning opportunities and resources can help clarify reading comprehension and how best to tailor our instruction to allow students the opportunity to practice strategies that result in thorough comprehension.

Anyone who chooses to become a teacher and devotes years to an undergraduate or graduate degree in education deserves to be taught evidence-based instruction with adequate mentoring and support.

For educators interested in nurturing students’ reading skills, here’s a wonderful opportunity to enhance your teaching toolkit.

Recent articles on the science of reading and reports on the latest research.

A long-running debate about the best way to teach children to read centers on two main approaches: whole language and structured literacy.

Being aware of syllables helps us learn new vocabulary, sound out words, and spell.

A terrific resource guide full of games and activities that will help kids learn important social-emotional skills, written by the Stern Center’s Director of Social Learning and Communication, Julie Erdelyi, M.A.

This paper will address what can be done in middle school for the adolescent literacy learner, identified in the research as beginning in grade 4, in order to benefit from the opportunities that literacy affords.