The Blog

Are you looking for books that help your students WANT to read? Are you trying to match reluctant readers with books they fall in love with? Books that make them keep coming back for me? Here’s my list of 5 types of books that kids just might love, even if they profess to “Hate Reading”. I’ve added some of my favorite titles to each category for you to check out.

A proficient reader has thousands of words in their sight vocabulary. Words that we automatically recognize at a speed so fast we don’t even realize it is happening. Words that we can’t stop ourselves from reading. Words that are permanently stuck in our brains. How does this happen? How do words move from needing to be decoded, to permanent and instant recognition? It’s all about orthographic mapping.

If you’ve spent any time in education lately, you’ve probably heard the phrase “science of reading.” But it’s more than a buzzword. The science of reading is a large body of research explaining how people learn to read, why some students struggle, and which instructional practices reliably lead to success. It’s not a single program or trend — it’s decades of evidence that can transform how we teach literacy.