by Missy Purcell Dear Balanced Literacy Teacher, I will never forget taking my current 6th grader to his first day of kindergarten. He was wide-eyed and full of wonder. As the 3rd child, he couldn’t wait for his day to join his older brothers at our local elementary school and do all the things they had done! The one thing he was most excited about was learning to read. Our home was filled with books, and he spent countless hours in his preschool years pretending to read alon

by Sherri Lucas-Hall My Dear Fellow Teacher: As you return to the classroom to serve students, I want to share the story of my 5-year journey with you, in hopes that you will join me. I began this journey in 2016, when I didn’t even realize what the journey would involve. I was doing research so that I could perfect the craft that I had loved and wanted since I was a little girl with a dream. You see, I have wanted to teach since about third grade. (My family tells me it was

by Missy Purcell Sometimes the only way we can change the way we think is to actually see the need for change with our very own eyes . . . I will never forget sitting in Matthew’s kindergarten parent/teacher conference. I knew my youngest was struggling to learn to read, and I wanted to know why. His teacher reminded he had a summer birthday, encouraged me that he would catch up, and challenged me to just keep reading with him. Even though she was the sweetest teacher, I reme

by Sherri Lucas-Hall I entered graduate school in the summer of 2008, at the age of 44 years old. My goal was to become a certified educator for the State of Georgia. My desire to be a teacher began much earlier, but I had avoided making the choice for years, mostly because I knew that teachers didn’t make any money, as far as I was concerned. But at 44, I decided that what I wanted more than anything was to teach. I had a provisional certificate and had been working as both

by Ashley Roberts Living in this world is hard. Our kids struggle and as parents it is almost impossible to watch, but watch we do. We do not want our kids to suffer, and educationally they suffer. They cry and scream and throw things and get sick and suffer from anxiety, depression and PTSD. Because of this we fight against an educational institution that does not want to teach our children. If dyslexia is acknowledged, and that's a big IF, goals are set inappropriately l

by Ashley Roberts We wanted to have a little Friday fun and talk hashtags. If you follow us regularly you see that we created our own hashtag, #DyslexiaRevolution. This encompasses how we feel and what we're after as a group. This is our "branded" hashtag if you will, but we will never copyright it as we want as many people as possible to use it. Getting into copyright situations with hashtags can be very tricky and our various marketing consultants and leaders have provid

Dear Balanced Literacy Proponents (or whatever PR spin fad-du-jour mask you’re wearing now), This is just a friendly note to let you know, your time is up. The Tom Foolery that has played out in American classrooms for the last few decades has damaged generations of children. The rising national illiteracy rates prove we have a national crisis on our hands, and we have you to thank for it. If that was your intention, then well done. You cast aside the truth that, “The functio