Negotiating the Important Links Between Word Study Decodable Texts, and Authentic Texts in Balanced Literacy Classrooms

Ideally, effective classroom word study will blend with and support meaningful engagements with texts. To help you achieve this goal, Dr. Shane Templeton will address some common questions to consider as you are planning and implementing developmentally based word study. How can we organize and differentiate our reading instruction? What is the role of decodable texts and where is the balance with natural texts? How does word study develop the voice-to-print match? How does this support the development of a sight vocabulary? What is the best way to teach high-frequency words? What is the relationship between learning to read words and learning to spell words?