06/09/2026
Sometimes a child can read beyond his age level—
and still make speech errors that seem surprisingly young.
We’re continuing our series:
Inside TJ’s Homeschool — Learning with Octophonics
📍 Lesson 11 — When Speech Patterns Interact with Reading
In this lesson, Ezekiel showed something fascinating.
Some of his mistakes looked like reading errors at first glance. But when we looked more closely, they appeared to be connected to speech development rather than decoding ability.
At the same time, he was learning to treat qu as a single sound unit instead of separate letters—a small shift that requires a much deeper understanding of how sounds are represented in print.
One of the most important reminders from this lesson:
Reading development and speech development do not always move at the same pace.
A child can continue building a strong decoding system even while certain speech patterns are still maturing.
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→ See TJ’s Lesson 11 observations and what they reveal about the relationship between speech and reading.
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06/02/2026
SoR in a Nutshell | Milestone 1
Many people assume reading begins with understanding.
Science of Reading suggests something different.
Before a child can understand a word, the word must first become language.
This week’s milestone explores one of the most important shifts in reading science:
Reading does not begin with meaning. It begins when print becomes language.
Take a look through the infographic and article to see why decoding is the foundation that makes everything else possible.
05/29/2026
Sometimes progress in reading doesn’t look like getting everything right.
Sometimes it looks like something that was easy yesterday suddenly becoming difficult again—
right as something new is introduced.
We’re continuing our series:
Inside TJ’s Homeschool — Learning with Octophonics
📍 Lesson 10 — When New Elements Disrupt an Emerging System
In this lesson, Ezekiel was introduced to a new group of consonants while continuing fluency practice.
What stood out was this:
the new consonants weren’t the hard part.
Instead, previously familiar vowel sounds became less consistent once the task became more complex.
That’s something we see often in learning to read.
When children are managing more pieces at once, earlier skills can temporarily feel less stable—not because learning is going backward, but because the system is reorganizing itself.
And with practice, that system becomes stronger.
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→ See TJ’s full Lesson 10 observation in the slides below.
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05/25/2026
FPEA Reflections | Different Backgrounds, Shared Recognition
As FPEA comes to a close, one of the most meaningful things we’re taking with us is this:
People came to our booth carrying very different stories—but again and again, they saw something meaningful in Octophonics.
Throughout the week, we met homeschooling parents just beginning their reading journey with their children, experienced classroom teachers, reading specialists, multilingual families, and parents supporting children with learning challenges. Their paths into literacy have looked very different. Their questions were different too.
And yet, so many of the conversations kept circling back to the same place.
For multilingual families—especially Spanish-speaking families—there was often an immediate reaction to the Octomarks. Many shared how difficult English pronunciation can feel when so much of the sound system remains hidden in print. Seeing vowel sounds, schwa, and pronunciation patterns made visible on the page felt intuitive right away. More than one parent told us they wished they had something like this when they were learning English themselves.
Teachers often noticed something different.
Many spent time studying the structure of the curriculum—how decoding is introduced, how sound patterns are revisited, how students move from simple phonics into multisyllabic reading. Several educators commented not only on the clarity of the sequence, but on how teachable it feels in real classrooms.
One local teacher who stopped by our booth said something our team won’t forget:
“This is the most Science of Reading–aligned curriculum I’ve seen.”
Others were drawn immediately to the visual system itself—especially how the markings support students who need to see language in order to process it. Again and again, we heard reflections on how powerful that could be for visual learners and struggling readers.
One of our favorite conversations this week was with a mother from a Spanish-speaking background who studied English herself and is already using a phonics curriculum she respects deeply with her older daughters. After spending time with Octophonics, she kept turning pages—especially in the section on schwa—comparing, asking questions, studying the patterns. In the end, even while continuing with her current program for her older children, she chose to bring Octophonics home for her youngest daughter.
That moment felt especially meaningful.
Because what we experienced this week wasn’t simply interest in a curriculum.
It was recognition.
Recognition from teachers looking for structure.
From multilingual families looking for clarity.
From parents looking for a way to make reading feel less frustrating.
From educators trying to find something that is rigorous without being overwhelming.
Different backgrounds.
Different learning journeys.
Different needs.
And yet, so many people arrived at the same response:
reading becomes easier when the structure becomes visible.
Thank you to everyone who stopped by Booth 1141 this week.
Thank you for the conversations, the thoughtful questions, and for letting us be part of your reading journey.
05/20/2026
Sometimes a child can read the sounds correctly—
but still struggle to hold them consistently inside whole words.
We’re continuing our series:
Inside TJ’s Homeschool — Learning with Octophonics
📍 Lesson 9 — When Sounds Are Known—but Not Yet Stabilized in Words
In this lesson, Ezekiel showed strong vowel control and completed spelling tasks with impressive accuracy.
What stood out was something more subtle:
when reading quickly, familiar sound patterns sometimes competed with each other.
“gig” became “jig.”
“hug” briefly became “huge.”
“zig” turned into “zag.”
But each time, he was able to self-correct.
That tells us the sound-symbol connections are already forming—
they’re just not fully automatic yet.
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05/29/2026
05/25/2026
05/20/2026