Ann Staman Hollingworth – Page 2 – Reading Tutor and Education Writer

15 Jul

Make a custom bundle!

Posted by Ann Staman Hollingworth My TpT store No Comments

Now you can pick exactly the resources you need from my Teachers Pay Teachers store at a 20% to 30% discount! Make a custom bundle by following these quick and easy steps. Choose the resources you want (minimum $10’s worth). Email that information to me. (See download for email address.) Wait 24 (usually) to 48 hours for me to make the bundle for you. I will email you to let you know that your custom bundle is ready! Download this FREEBIE for detailed instructions for creating your custom bundle. Enjoy the resources you want! Click below to download the free […]

12 Jun

Why the Handprints Leveled Readers are Special

Posted by Ann Staman Hollingworth Beginning reading, Handprints, Leveled books, Literacy 2 Comments

NOTE: The Handprints publisher was bought out by a larger publisher who decided to drop the series. I am told that the editors are seeking another publisher for the Handprints series. I hate to brag, but I am extremely proud of my series Handprints, the 120 leveled books I wrote for children at the early stages of learning to read. Creating these books, also called leveled readers, was a complicated process, and I wanted them to be different in several ways from other available books of the same type. Leveled Readers Some people think that “leveled” means “simple,” but leveled […]

31 May

Teaching Comprehension, Part 2: Text Structure

Posted by Ann Staman Hollingworth Beginning reading, Handprints, Teaching reading No Comments

If you haven’t already, check out Teaching Comprehension, Part 1: Learning to Focus on Meaning. Once youngsters have learned to focus on meaning as they read, the next step I take in developing their reading comprehension is to teach them about different types of texts and how they are organized. As I grew up, the meaning of long texts always seemed elusive. Understanding a chapter or article was like trying to catch a bunch of slippery eels that were wriggling through my fingers. I realize now that I was focusing on the individual words, and not the larger text. So […]

26 May

Teaching Vocabulary, Part 2: Exploring Words More Deeply

Posted by Ann Staman Hollingworth Beginning reading, Early intervention, Literacy, Teaching reading No Comments

This is the second post on teaching vocabulary to beginning readers. Here is the first post: Teaching Vocabulary, Part 1: Introducing Words Once youngsters have a decent sight vocabulary, decoding ability, and understanding that words can be categorized in various ways, it’s time to broaden our vocabulary instruction to: word webs; dictionary skills; Tier 2 words; literal vs figurative language. Word Webs Word webs serve a number of purposes in vocabulary development. They help students: appreciate rich word meanings; make connections between words; and expand their vocabularies. There are many different kinds of word webs, but below is a simple […]

26 May

Teaching Vocabulary, Part 1: Introducing Words

Posted by Ann Staman Hollingworth Beginning reading, Early intervention, Literacy, Reading tutor, Teaching reading No Comments

Teaching word meanings at the primary level is often overlooked because there is so much else to cover, but vocabulary development will improve students’ listening and reading comprehension through their school years and beyond. Of course you already knew that… Listening Vocabularies Because young children don’t have the skills for unlocking unfamiliar words, teaching vocabulary for them begins with readalouds. Hearing new words naturally within a story helps kids learn their meanings, and going over the words before and after the reading improves retention. Demonstrating how to use context to figure out word meanings is a first step toward close reading. It’s also fun to […]

17 May

Teaching Comprehension, Part 1: Learning to Focus on Meaning

Posted by Ann Staman Hollingworth Beginning reading, Early intervention, Literacy, Teaching reading No Comments

I don’t know about you, but I can sometimes forget about teaching comprehension! There’s so much to teach beginning readers that it’s easy to put meaning on the back burner. It probably doesn’t help that I have a history of poor reading comprehension myself. Growing up, I had no idea how to focus on meaning as I read, but instead concentrated on identifying word…after word…after word… One time my first grade teacher asked me to read a page to the class. I proudly stood up and read every word correctly, word…after word…after word… Then she asked me to explain what […]

22 Apr

Tutoring Post-COVID Part 2: Teaching

Posted by Ann Staman Hollingworth Beginning reading, Literacy, Online tutoring, Reading tutor, Teaching reading No Comments

What a time for early literacy tutors! Because of the last two years of COVID and the so-called learning gap, tutors are in great demand right now. Isn’t it wonderful to know that we can help? But, due to the changes in our students’ lives during the pandemic, we might want to tweak our approach to teaching beginning readers.

17 Apr

Tutoring Post-COVID Part 1: Assessment

Posted by Ann Staman Hollingworth Assessment, Beginning reading, Online tutoring, Reading tutor No Comments

What a time for early literacy tutors! Because of the last two years of COVID and the so-called learning gap, both in-person and online tutors are in great demand right now. Many studies have shown a loss of achievement in reading as a result of the pandemic, especially for at-risk populations. I’m not here to argue about the reasons that many students are behind academically or the extent of the learning gap. Instead, I want to focus on how you can help as a tutor of beginning readers. In many ways, these suggestions are just what I would recommend for […]

20 Feb

Teaching Morphemic Awareness

Posted by Ann Staman Hollingworth Beginning reading, Early intervention, Literacy, My TpT store, Teaching reading No Comments

I love teaching children about morphemes, because the payoff is so great! Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units of a language (e.g., -s, re-, spect, fly). After spending decades focusing on phonemic and phonological awareness, educators are now realizing how important it is to teach morphological awareness as well. Morphological awareness—the ability to use the smallest meaningful word parts to determine a word’s meaning—helps young readers by improving their: word recognition spelling fluency vocabulary comprehension We can start teaching morphemes in kindergarten, or even pre-K, and our knowledge of word chunks can expand into adulthood. Word Recognition and Spelling The […]

25 Jan

Got the midyear teacher blues?

Posted by Ann Staman Hollingworth Guided reading, Literacy, Teaching reading, Uncategorized No Comments

Are you or your reading students suffering from the “midyear blues”? For many teachers, this midwinter halfway point in the school year is a challenging time. Some of our students have stopped putting much effort into learning to read. Perhaps they were practicing inefficient reading strategies that are no long working for them, or maybe the text level is just too frustrating, so they’ve given up. We adults may be having trouble focusing on day to day lessons, as well, with worries such as report cards, parent conferences, and high stakes tests. And, yes, we’re also fretting about those children […]

03 Jan

Grammar can be fun with Noun Town!

Posted by Ann Staman Hollingworth Beginning reading, Digital, Teaching reading No Comments

Noun Town paper and digital resources provide a memorable way for children to learn about parts of speech. With these concrete, hands-on (or fingers-on) activities, youngsters cut and paste (or drag and drop) images onto a map. Then they match the images with words. Kids have so much fun creating their towns that they don’t even know they are learning grammar! The rich context of the activity enables beginning readers to identify words that they might not be able to do in a different context. And, in addition to developing decoding skills, the activity is a great way to review […]

01 Nov

Thanksgiving Resources

Posted by Ann Staman Hollingworth Professional Tools, Writing No Comments

It’s November already! Halloween is over (boo-hoo!), and it’s time to think about Thanksgiving-themed lessons in early literacy. I love teaching gratitude—the state of mind that can turn around a sour mood or disappointed mindset. And I especially love introducing or reinforcing the idea of thankfulness to children, who are at the beginning of their lives.

01 Nov

Check out the Blog Index tab for topics!

Posted by Ann Staman Hollingworth Uncategorized No Comments

30 Oct

Tips for Teaching Struggling Readers

Posted by Ann Staman Hollingworth Beginning reading, Early intervention, Teaching reading No Comments

Do you have a student who is struggling with learning to read? I don’t know about you, but every year when I was teaching, I seemed to have one student who worried me far more than the others because he wasn’t progressing in reading. (And it usually was a boy…) Often these children are reluctant readers, as well. They have encountered failure so much that they give up trying. When you read those words, I bet you are immediately thinking of one of your own students, past or present.

11 Jul

EDITABLE Reading Benchmark Assessment

Posted by Ann Staman Hollingworth Assessment, Beginning reading, Early intervention, Guided reading, Literacy, Professional Tools, Teaching reading, Tutoring No Comments

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