By Carly Guiterman, Middle School CSE Coordinator; Jessica Schanker, Middle School Speech Language Pathologist; and Leah Wasserman, Middle School Speech Language Pathologist
We would like to thank the MMFS Parents Association for this opportunity to develop an evidence-based decoding and encoding curriculum for literacy groups at the middle school.
As we observed and provided in-class support to students during literacy instruction, we noticed the ongoing need for multisensory instruction of advanced reading and spelling patterns for our students. Since literacy teachers spend significant time and effort developing curriculums for the books they teach, we wanted to use our expertise as speech language pathologists and our training in several reading systems to create an easy-to-use curriculum with lessons, independent practice, and assessment. The work we created over the summer ensures that all literacy teachers are able to open up a lesson and have all the understanding and materials they need to teach advanced spelling patterns and morphological knowledge
When we began our work, we discussed the most common and challenging reading and spelling patterns that confused our students. We focused on vowel teams, diphthongs, and word endings. We created presentations for each unit based on the Wilson Reading System, Just Words, and Megawords curriculums. As we created each lesson, we ensured that any teacher using it would know exactly what to do. In addition to the presentations, we created corresponding exercises to use in class and as independent practice.
We feel so honored to work at MMFS and have a supportive administration that trusted us to create a curriculum in an area where we felt our teachers and students needed more support. Thank you again to the Parents Association for this opportunity.
