Lighthouse Literacy Solutions, LLC

10/10/2026

A snack tray, some picture cards, and a hungry monster made for a BIG hit in tutoring this week! 🟢🟡🔴

Here’s how we used it:

👂 𝐁𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐭: I say the sounds—/w/ /ĕ/ /t/—and the student tells me the word: “wet!”

🚪 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐭: The student finds the matching picture on a door and opens it to see whether a surprise is inside.

🟢🟡🔴 𝐒𝐞𝐠𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐭: They remove the picture, place it beside their recording sheet, and say each sound while touching the green, yellow, and red dots. Then they say the whole word again.

✏️ 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐢𝐭: They spell the word, write it, and read it back.

👾 𝐅𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐭: Finally, the picture becomes lunch for our hungry monster!

I tucked coins and little 3D-printed animals behind some of the doors. Next up: small erasers and tiny snacks!

The students loved the surprises and each turn gave us practice blending sounds, segmenting words, connecting sounds to letters, and spelling.

📄 𝐖𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐢𝐭? I’m sharing the worksheet that goes with this activity! It has 18 numbered spaces, each with green, yellow, and red sound dots and a line for spelling.

Grab it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NLwI66wRA3slZZ_3G5lHJwLFlDAQsTP-/view?usp=sharing

10/09/2026

I have seen (𝐬𝐞𝐞 + -𝐞𝐧) the explanation for the word been (𝐛𝐞 + -𝐞𝐧) before, but I really had to sit with it a bit today because I didn't feel I truly understood it fully.

I understood the word parts in been, but I wanted to make the grammatical connection clearer: What is -en actually doing here?

Think about 𝐠𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐧, 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐧, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧.

These are past participles; the verb forms we use in sentences like:

• I 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 tired.
• She 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘯 help.
• He 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘯 a turn.
• We 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘯 today.

In these words, -𝐞𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐩𝐥𝐞. Its job is grammatical, so explaining it requires more than giving students a simple suffix definition.

Compare:
“I took a turn.”
“I have taken a turn.”

“I was tired.”
“I have been tired.”

That sentence connection helps make the word structure meaningful.

These verbs are irregular, so students still need to learn their particular forms and pronunciations. We cannot simply add -en to every verb.

This is why I want to connect 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐩𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲, 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐱 in instruction. Understanding a word includes understanding how it works in a sentence.

10/08/2026

One of my students reading a book from Tumbleweed Publishing 💪🏻 She loved reading about treasures found with a metal detector while practicing closed syllable exceptions! I was also able to assign her a passage to read about the same topic on ReadWorks 🌟

10/08/2026

A student can become an accurate reader and still read slowly. That’s why I look at accuracy and rate separately when working on fluency.

Using the Hasbrouck–Tindal oral reading fluency norms as the target for every student with dyslexia can become an exercise in frustration. Those norms provide a useful comparison, but successful remediation does not necessarily bring reading rate into the average range. Torgesen et al. (2001) documented persistent rate difficulties even when average accuracy and comprehension scores reached the average range.

Here is what I do: I use the student’s own performance to help establish an individualized fluency goal.

First, I assess how quickly they can read material they can already decode easily (RAN). That gives me a starting benchmark for working toward greater automaticity with newer skills.
I have also used familiar number naming as a reference: single-digit single syllable numbers for lower-level passages and two-digit multisyllabic numbers when working with multisyllabic words. This gives me another way to observe how quickly the student can recognize familiar symbols and say them aloud. You can even use animal pictures with multisyllabic names in lieu of digits.

These naming tasks provide reference points...not exact equivalents of passage reading. I use them to inform a working goal, then evaluate that goal against the student’s actual reading.

I build fluency in a progression:
Word reading
Phrases
Sentences
Connected text

I start with individual words, then work toward using those skills fluently within increasingly complex reading tasks.

Through Precision Teaching, I can track correct responses and errors over time and use those data to guide instruction.

My goal is accurate, increasingly effortless reading that carries over to unfamiliar text—with comprehension intact.

The student’s starting rate helps guide the work. It does not define their potential.

10/07/2026

I need parents (and everyone else) to understand this: DLD is not caused by parents not talking enough to their children! Dyslexia is not caused by parents not reading enough to their child(ren).

We need to STOP blaming parents.

10/04/2026

This is an important episode!

Those students who have been behind in reading for years? There's A LOT going on that we don't always see.

Comment DYSLEXIA and we'll send you the full episode. https://ow.ly/x6Jy50ZtYL0

09/27/2026

King was writing about the unfinished work of racial equality, but I cannot read these words without thinking about reading instruction: "...too quickly apathy and disinterest rise to the surface when the next logical steps are to be taken."

We have spent years declaring a reading crisis. States have passed literacy laws. Districts have purchased new curricula. Teachers have attended Science of Reading training. Screeners have been mandated. We have recorded the reform.

Now comes the next logical step: Are children actually learning to read?

Because passing a literacy law is not reading reform. Purchasing a curriculum is not reading reform. Completing professional development is not reading reform. Administering a screener three times a year is not reading reform.

𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐧 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐢𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦.
Everything else is a means to that end.

09/26/2026

Lucy Calkins told TIME, “…it’s awful to have teachers teaching in ways they don’t believe in.”

THIS is a BIG part of the problem. 😡 I wish Lucy would retire - she has done nothing but harm children and teachers.

Whether a child receives reading instruction grounded in evidence should not depend on whether their teacher feels warm and fuzzy about it! Imagine saying, “Dr. Smith is so upset about being required to wash his hands before surgery. It’s just not something he believes in.” We would recognize how absurd that is. We would ask why Dr. Smith’s feelings were being placed above his patient’s safety!

Teachers deserve training, support, and a chance to ask questions. They also have a professional duty to update their practice when evidence shows a better way to teach. Personal belief cannot be the standard that determines what children receive. Schools exist to educate children! They are not job creators. Schools do not exist to meet the needs of educators!

Children should not have to pay the price for an adult’s attachment to a method.