Our Favorite Literacy Resources

Our Favorite Literacy Resources

Author: Shannon Betts and Mary Saghafi October 14, 2022 Duration: 47:16

Shannon and Mary chat about their favorite free and low cost literacy resources to use in reading lessons and tutoring sessions.   They share links to:  complete phonics curriculum resources that include scope and sequences, decodable texts, vocabulary lists and activities, phonics and phonemic awareness activities, and strategies for teaching comprehension.   Check out the links in the show notes to find resources to use with your own reading students.


Episode Resources:

  1. our episode about favorite FCRR resources
  2. Florida Center for Reading Research Student Center Activities
  3. Open Source Phonics
  4. Tools4Teaching (formerly West Virginia Phonics)
  5. UFLI new reading resources (Univ. of Florida)
  6. CKLA Curriculum Resources
  7. Emily Gibbon's Literacy Nest -Also check out her podcast, TpT resources, and her Tuesday newsletter for tips!
  8. The Measured Mom
  9. This Reading Mama
  10. Walpole & McKenna Open Up Resources
  11. Academic Vocabulary Word Lists by Grade Level (Flocabulary)
  12. Get More Vocabulary.com: Shades of Meaning
  13. Reading Rockets: Semantic Gradients  
  14. Edison Literacy
  15. Readwritethink lessons
  16. Flyleaf Publishing Decodables
  17. Open Source Phonics Decodable Texts
  18. Free passages according to Lexile (Read Works)
  19. Jan Richardson's resources
  20. Emily Gibbon's Word List Builder
  21. ISME (Institute for Multi-Sensory Education) Digital Resources
  22. Getting Reading to Read Phonemic Awareness activities *Amazon affiliate link*
  23. How to Teach Spelling *Amazon affiliate link*
  24. Handwriting Joke book *Amazon affiliate link*

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In the Reading Teachers Lounge, hosts Shannon Betts and Mary Saghafi pull up a chair for a conversation that feels both deeply professional and warmly familiar. These two elementary reading teachers and Atlanta neighbors discovered a shared, fervent passion for literacy over a local dinner, realizing they were kindred spirits in their mission. That initial chat never really ended, and now it forms the heart of this podcast. Each episode invites you into their ongoing dialogue, where practical classroom strategies, reflections on what works, and thoughtful discussions about reaching every single learner are all on the table. It’s a space designed for fellow educators, dedicated parents, and anyone invested in how children learn to read, offering tangible ideas rather than abstract theory. The tone is collaborative and grounded in real classroom experiences, reflecting a joint belief that literacy is foundational. By tuning in, you gain access to their collective experience and earnest curiosity, all focused on the complex, rewarding world of teaching reading. This isn't about performance; it's about sharing a genuine professional conversation from their lounge to yours, making the Reading Teachers Lounge a unique podcast for those who live and breathe language education.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 129

Reading Teachers Lounge
Podcast Episodes
Teaching and Reaching Diverse Learners [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:04:47
Shannon and Mary chat with Khadijah Abdullah, a public school teacher in their area, about how she balances the wide variety of reading abilities in her classroom. Khadijah shares about her trauma-informed teaching pract…
Speaking and Listening Standards [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 55:12
Shannon and Mary read over and discuss the Speaking and Listening standards in Reading to develop a deeper understanding of how and why these standards exist and help the students grow in literacy. They show how the stan…
Building Reading Fluency [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:36
Shannon chats with Stephanie Summers from Pride Reading Program about the topic of helping students build their reading fluency. They talk about what skills go into a student's reading fluency. They share ways to work on…
Building Vocabulary [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 54:45
Shannon and Mary focus their conversation on how to build students' vocabularies. They share less effective methods used in the past and how they've evolved their vocabulary instruction to help students the most. In the…
Meaningful Learning Assessments [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:36
Often Shannon and Mary discuss different types of student assessments. Today we are going to dive a little deeper and discuss how we use data analysis to make meaningful adjustments and decisions to our teaching practice…
Decodable Texts with Emily Gibbons, the Literacy Nest [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 57:06
Shannon and Mary chat with Emily Gibbons from the Literacy Nest about decodable texts. This discussion provides information about how decodables are similar and different to trade books and leveled texts. In this episode…
Simple View of Reading and Beyond with Dr. Janet Mort [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:09:20
Shannon and Mary chat with Dr. Janet Mort, who has fifty years of experience in the field of education and reading. We discuss the Simple View of Reading and how that affected reading instruction in the 1980s and 1990s.…
Orthographic Mapping with Anna Geiger (The Measured Mom) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 58:12
Shannon and Mary chat with Ann Geiger from The Measured Mom about how readers orthographically stores words in their reading brains. This episode follows our overview of the reading brain, where we talked about the reade…
the Reading Brain with Dr. Marnie Ginsberg [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:09:40
Shannon and Mary chat with Dr. Marnie Ginsberg from Reading Simplified about what happens in the brain during reading. We talk about the reader's journey to whole word recognition and how reading teachers can help their…