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Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift @reading-shift.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Two Dyslexic Adults: What We Wish Our Teachers Knew About Language and Learning “If only we had learned how the English writing system works—from words to sentences—when we were in elementary school! Maybe we wouldn’t have struggled with language and literacy.” podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

podcasts.apple.com

Two Dyslexic Adults: What We Wish Our Teachers Knew About Language and Learning: Sara Lee talks with Marie Foley & Bruce Howlett

Podcast Episode · For The Love Of Literacy · June 30 · 1h 4m

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Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift @reading-shift.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

Deacon and Tong’s Linguistics Pathways Model: • Morphological decoding pathway forms the foundation for word reading, spelling and vocabulary knowledge. • Syntax-to-Sentence pathway integrates multiple language components, leading to reading comprehension podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

podcasts.apple.com

The Sentence Pathway to Decoding and Comprehension -- Xiuhong Tong & S. Hélène Deacon

Podcast Episode · For The Love Of Literacy · April 20 · 59m

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Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift @reading-shift.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

Let's stop focusing on decoding and start focusing on developing literacy. The three most important yet overlooked components of literacy are: morphemes (the building blocks of all words) phrases (the building blocks of sentences) syntax - the universal blueprint for build sentences.

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Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift @reading-shift.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

Still teaching reading, spelling & writing as if they are different things? The Seven Layers of Literacy lesson plan takes all students, including weak decoders & spellers, from single words to natural words pairs to phrases to sentence comprehension and writing in each lesson. ReadingShift.com

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Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift @reading-shift.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

Wondering how to provide integrated instruction? Listen to Australian teacher educator Meghan Hicks describe how word, sentence & text structures develop reading comp & written expression. "Four Powerful Word, Sentence, Text and Cognitive Routines for Teaching Writing" Apple Podcasts too.

open.spotify.com

Four Powerful Word, Sentence, Text and Cognitive Routines for Teaching Writing - Meghan Hicks

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Reposted by Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift

Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

The president should be impeached and convicted, as should everyone responsible for these outrages. ICE should be disbanded. So should the Department of Homeland Security. And the people who have killed should be investigated and brought before judges and juries.

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Reposted by Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift

Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 11/01/2026

We have to be clear about what the Trump Administration is doing: They are taking basic American virtues and freedoms — the ability to speak truth to power and freely — and turning them into crimes. We must see through this.

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Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift @reading-shift.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

Learn about the most important topic in literacy -- developmental language disorder DLD. Identify and support using practical methods students who struggle with language and literacy. Kathleen Love and Beth Gunshor will show you practical methods so you can be successful with these students.

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Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift @reading-shift.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

To comply with IDA’s current definition of Structured Literacy, "A School Year Rich in Words" will interest you. It shows how to “systematic integration” of phonology, morphology, semantics, and syntax orthography. open.spotify.com/episode/1zZ9... podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a...

open.spotify.com

A School Year Rich in Words - Ann Whiting & Lyn Anderson

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Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift @reading-shift.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

Also state mandates have never led to long term improvement in reading comprehension scores.

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Reposted by Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift

ImpactWales @impactwales.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

Varying the conditions of learning, makes that learning more effective. Here ⬇️ is a description of how it works from an experiment by Kerr & Booth (1978). How can you get pupils to think harder about their learning? We provide bespoke professional learning for schools www.impact.wales

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Reposted by Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift

Isabelle Finn-Kelcey @isabellefk.bsky.social · 31/08/2025

Oh dear indeed. Unfortunately, ‘getting kids in and behaving’ is exactly what can burn them out - esp autistic & ADHD children & teens, whose experience of school attendance can be much harsher & more draining than for their neurotypical peers, as new research shows. www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2025/ju...

ucl.ac.uk

Neurodivergent adolescents experience twice the emotional burden at school

Negative school experiences generate twice the emotional burden in autistic and ADHD adolescents compared to their neurotypical classmates, and this is significantly correlated with depression and anx...

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Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift @reading-shift.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

Tonight’s The Reading League Talk by Sue Hegland, author of Beneath the Surface of Words, who will be introduced by Linnea Ehri, expands on a statement made by Dr. Ehri on this For the Love of Literacy podcast. This talk will explain the role that written morphemes, morphographs.

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Mark Anderson @mandercorn.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

"Current results suggest that children with #DLD should successfully retrieve word forms and meanings across multiple sessions to support post-training retention." pubs.asha.org/doi/abs/10.1...

pubs.asha.org

The Number of Sessions Children With Developmental Language Disorder Retrieve Words Relates Positively to Retrieval After Extended Post-Training Delays

Purpose: For adults and children with typical development, the number of training sessions a target item is successfully retrieved relates positi...

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Reposted by Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift

Dr. Pam Kastner @liv2learnliteracy.bsky.social · 13/07/2025

Week 8 of #SummerSkillSaturdays: ✍️Writing Wonders! Boost handwriting with top resources from Graham, Van Cleave, Datchuk & more! PLUS free tools (LIFTER & CLIFTER)! 🖋️ bit.ly/Kastner-SSS-... 📝 bit.ly/Kastner-SSS-... #WritingMatters

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Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift @reading-shift.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

Just like the 5 billion spent on Reading First and "scientifically based reading instruction", millions on LETRS and Science of Reading. Let's look at the upper strands of Scarborough's Rope and put oral language and reasoning up front.

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Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift @reading-shift.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

Phonology is a lower order language skill. Morphemes link to word meaning, are tied tightly to vocabulary growth and grapheme- morpheme relationships in English are much stronger than phoneme-grapheme associations..

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Ash Dwight @ashdwight.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

I virtually attended Marie Foley’s Making Sense Of Words With Morphology micro workshop, and I would highly recommend it to anybody looking to “discover how visual narrative and Structured Word Inquiry can help students make sense of the writing system.” www.mariefoleyreading.com/workshops

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Shannon Saglio @shannonsaglio.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

Cuts to the Institute of Education Sciences = cuts to research, data & tools that help kids—especially struggling readers & students w/ disabilities. Tell Congress: Protect IES funding. #StandUpForReadingResearch Call your RI Congressional Reps: opengov.sos.ri.gov/GOVDirectory...

You can't spell Science of Reading without IES. Created by Congress in 2002. Dedicated to providing accessible scientific research into effective educational practices. Critical to reading research.

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Reposted by Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift

Ida Bae Wells @nhannahjones.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

Mark my words and please understand: They erase your history so that they can erase your rights.

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Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift @reading-shift.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

With falling NAEP scores & research showing that sentence writing is essential to reading growth, let's give students a change to perform at a higher level - even if they are struggling with decoding. Yes, writing success can motivate struggling readers! more linguistic challenges - readingshift.com

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Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift @reading-shift.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

You are using is current research if it conforms to: 1. Share's universal combining principle - symbols + phonemes = morphemes to make words 2. Duke and Cartwright's Active View- upgrades "The Rope" 3. Wolf's POSSuM in each lesson - phonemes, graphemes, morphemes, word meaning, sentence writing

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Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift @reading-shift.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

Integrated language-literacy builds skills using the universal combining principle - symbols & sounds builds meaningful morphemes - the core of words. Words combined into phrases & sentences. The first & every lesson in Sparking the Reading Shift raises expectations & motivation. ReadingShift.com

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Nancy E. Bailey @nancyebailey.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

Children are under a lot of stress. This shouldn't include pressure to read before they're developmentally ready. Instead, please read engaging picture books together, especially the funny ones, and back off the academic expectations. nancyebailey.com/2023/03/13/h...

nancyebailey.com

How Stressing Preschoolers and Kindergarteners Could Lead to Mental Health Problems - Nancy Bailey's Education Website

There has been a pushdown of academic expectations for years, and Americans should be asking how much stress this causes all students, especially our youngest learners. If a child struggles in prescho...

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Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift @reading-shift.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

Interested in morphology and its powerful influence on decoding, spelling and vocabulary development? Check out the work of Peter Bowers and Structured Word Inquiry. I attended his workshop last summer and it simplified and clarified my approach to literacy. drive.google.com/file/d/1Ga9U...

drive.google.com

5-session SWI Workshop Eduspark starting March 2025.pdf

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Julia Shayto @phonicsandstuff.com · 27/02/2025

How often does the rule 'i before e' actually apply? In our database of 30k+ words, 'i before e' occurs 902 times compared to 'e before i', which occurs 226 times. However, if you look at weighted word frequencies (how often a word actually occurs in English), it's a more interesting story.

Word frequencies.
word freq word freq
believe 240 their 68
friend 262 being 158
friends 331 either 407
die 432 received 487
married 547 neither 653
cried 554 seeing 729
tried 567 receive 847
replied 593 eight 864
quiet 665 foreign 1333
chief 692 weight 1475
view 701 seized 1935
lie 752 height 1945
piece 756 receiving 2193
ladies 795 weird 2213

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Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift @reading-shift.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

The #1 goal of literacy is to read & write sentences. Sentences assign meaning to words & strongly predict & determine texts comprehension. Instead of starting with letters and sounds start with a sentence, break it into phrases, morphemes & graphemes then manipulate the parts. More ReadingShift.com

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Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift @reading-shift.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

The Universal "Combining" Principle that all kids on the planet used to learn to read - Phonemes = morphemes in speech. Graphemes = morphemes in written words. All words are combinations of morphemes. Words combine into phrases & sentences - the key to meaning From Day 1 go from sounds to sentences

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Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift @reading-shift.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

End siloed instruction, from phonics to leveled books. Integrate the four major components of speech - phonemes (sounds), with meaningful morphemes, words (semantics) and sentences (syntax) with the MANY ways they are represented in print. Nell Duke says to it simultaneously, or use Wolf's POSSuM.

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Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift @reading-shift.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

Have you stuck to literacy practices for years? Maybe it's a habit rather than a simpler and innovative practice based on current research.

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Tim Rasinski @timrasinski.bsky.social · 05/01/2025

MORPHOLOGY MONDAY: NOV = NEW ! Happy New Year! For this first MM of the New Year, I’ve selected the word root NOV which means NEW. If word roots interests you as an approach to vocabulary instruction, I’d like to recommend Building Vocabulary from Word Roots (K-12).

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Cadernos de Linguística @cadlin.bsky.social · 05/01/2025

Chomsky explains how 'Merge,' the foundational operation of the linguistic faculty, underpins language as a uniquely human and universal capacity. Learn more: doi.org/10.25189/267... #langsky #linguistics

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Jill Barshay @jillbarshay.bsky.social · 27/12/2024

My most consequential story of the year was about how so-called “science of reading” instruction can still be at odds with the research evidence. One common pitfall is the over-teaching of sounds or “phonemic awareness.” (1/7) hechingerreport.org/proof-points...

hechingerreport.org

PROOF POINTS: Controversies within the science of reading

A growing number of researchers are criticizing an overemphasis on auditory skills

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Mark Anderson @mandercorn.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

"comprehension is not a skill or set of skills; rather, it is a complex multidimensional ability." www.aft.org/ae/winter202...

aft.org

Rethinking Reading

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Bruce Howlett - Sparking the Reading Shift @reading-shift.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

Learn about the connections between language and literacy and David Share's upcoming paper on the universal way that all readers on the planet learn to read all the various forms of written language using the combining principle. Also Sparking the Fluency Shift b7howlett.wixsite.com/so/3cPCybSn-...

b7howlett.wixsite.com

Free Revised Program & Sparking the Reading Shift

Just Released - Sparking the Fluency Shift Effortless, Enjoyable & Engaging Reading Experiences. We have never been satisfied with the progress our students made with Sparking the Reading Shift when t...

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Dylan Wiliam @dylanwiliam.bsky.social · 28/10/2024

Phonological-only reading instruction works, but not as well as print-based approaches, is—unsurprisingly—more effective for phonological awareness than word reading and, again perhaps unsurprisingly, works less well in preschool: bit.ly/4ffN4AJ ($)

bit.ly

Is Phonological-Only Instruction Helpful for Reading?: A Meta-Analysis

Phonological awareness (PA), the awareness of sounds in spoken words, is strongly linked to reading outcomes. However, there is an ongoing debate regarding the effectiveness of PA instruction witho...

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