I know I have a lot of readers from outside Knox County TN but I just wanted to blog about an experience I was given yesterday within Knox County Schools.

​As most of you know, Orton Gillingham is the method of reading that has research based proof that helps dyslexic students how to read and spell. There are many programs out there that are based off of Orton-Gillingham and when done with fidelity they work within our small group RTI setting or within special education.

​A few weeks ago I was able to sit in on a Language Live intervention class done with 8th graders and I was blown away by what I was seeing. I will admit I was a skeptic when it came to Language Live but I am now going to say I am a believer in what this program can, and is, doing in our middle schools. Again, when done with fidelity.

​Awhile back now I had heard about a professional development class that was being offered within Knox County School called year-long reading. It is based on Louisa Moats and her research so right from that information I knew this would be a good thing. Louisa Moats has done a lot of research on reading, writing and spelling. Just do a google search on her name and you will find many of her articles and her books that she has written on this topic.

​Yesterday I was given the opportunity to sit in on the training that was offered for teachers in grades 3-5 and I  was blown away. (KCS is also doing this for K-2 and for middle and high.) I am so impressed with what Knox County is doing with our general ed ELA (English Language Arts) curriculum. Every single teacher should be in this training because sadly our colleges and universities are not teaching this, the science behind reading.

​There is a lot of literature out there in regards to our brains and how we have to be taught to read. We were never meant to be readers so we need to teach our brains how to read. I'm not telling any of you anything you don't already know but it makes me so happy to know that at least Knox County Schools is teaching our teachers this information.

What is RAVE-O?

​RAVE-O stands for Reading through Automaticity, Vocabulary, Elaboration, Orthography plus Retrieval. RAVE-O was designed by Maryanne Wolf, who has done tons of  research on RAN (Rapid Automatized Naming). You may have heard the term "double deficit dyslexia", that means students with deficits in phoneme awareness and rapid naming. Maryanne Wolf designed this reading program to help students who are considered double deficit.

​As you may already know my daughter is considered double deficit, so I was looking for a way to help her and was told about RAVE-O. I am pleased to announce that I have now completed the online course and I have received my certificate of completion and I can now tutor students with RAN deficits using RAVE-O.

​For more information on RAVE-O, take a look here.

These are just some of the books I am reading about how spelling DOES matter. Part one of the TNReady test was mostly just writing and with spell check no longer available since we went from computer to paper/pencil, I asked the TN DOE the question, what about spelling errors?

I looked up the rubric for 4th-5th grade and this is what I found:

In order to get a 4 under conventions it says:
        The writing:

• demonstrates consistent and sophisticated command of grade-level conventions of standard written English
• may contain a few minor errors that do not interfere with meaning

​Next to that first bullet point is the number 2. Looking at the footnote that says:

Conventions of standard written English include sentence structure, grammar, usage, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.

​​To me that means spelling DOES in fact matter and this raises a HUGE concern for me.

​I am aware that this won't count against a students grade, and it won't count against a teachers evaluation, but I believe it will count against a school.

​Food for thought.