**This is a second semester course. Only learners who have completed the first semester will be able to enroll. Please contact me if you have questions. All students not meeting this criteria will be withdrawn from the course.**

This class is built on the Orton-Gillingham approach to instruction. It combines decades of the best reading science with strong practice and routines so students gain confidence and practice in a hands-on, integrated, and fun way. Each week, learners will focus on a new set of affixes or Greek and Latin Roots, practice new vocabulary, build reading fluency and comprehension, and practice new grammar and writing skills. Please see the detailed timeline below. While Orton-Gillingham instruction is beneficial for all learners, it is particularly helpful for learners with dyslexia.

Students will develop, use, and maintain an interactive notebook as a reference for all parts of the class. Resources will be provided and also created with students so that this notebook becomes a living document representing what they know and have learned about the English language.

Classes will include games, slides, video clips, discussion, and interaction among learners. 

Classes will generally follow the following format, though there may be flexibility within each week, depending on the specific content.

Day 1: Review previously learned morphemes, learn new affixes or bases, and introduction of necessary spelling rules. This will be done through consistent, detailed review, manipulation of learned morphemes, introduction of new morphemes through exploration and analysis, and hands-on practice with writing, spelling, and creating words using these morphemes.

Day 2: Vocabulary, Fluency and Comprehension through the use of a quality text, rereading, and analyzing. Vocabulary from an appropriate text will be previewed to assist in vocabulary building and comprehension. Texts will be read and reread using a variety of activities designed to increase fluency. Texts will be from a variety of genres and selected to enhance previously learned skills. Finally, we will analyze and discuss the text using a variety of methods to help students improve retelling, sequencing, clarifying, making inferences, and other important comprehension skills. Each week the emphasis may be on a different element of these facets of reading, as each element works together to reinforce the others. 

Day 3: Grammar and Writing. On our third day each week, in addition to review of learned morphemes, we will improve our understanding of the grammar of the English language, including parts of speech, figurative language, sentence structure, and syntax. 

New morphemes for each week, vocabulary strategy, grammar, and writing skills are outlined below:

Week 1: 
Morphemes: re/mis
Vocabulary skill: Word Matrices
Grammar: Nouns--plural (regular and irregular)
Writing: Quotation marks

Week 2:
Morphemes: pre-/de-
Vocabulary skill: Word Matrices--why all these silent letters?
Grammar: Possessive Pronouns
Writing: Punctuation-parentheses

Week 3:
Morphemes: -ly
Fluency skill: Roll an Emoji
Grammar: Verb Tense continuity
Writing: Dashes

Week 4:
Morphemes: con-
Fluency skill: Tone
Grammar: Adjectives of comparison
Writing: Writing Process: Brainstorm

Week 5:
Morphemes: Latin base tract
Comprehension Skill: Author's purpose
Grammar: Adverbs
Writing: Writing Process: Organize

Week 6: 
Morphemes: Latin Base scrib/script
Comprehension Skill: Author's Purpose continued
Grammar: Prepositional phrases
Writing: Writing Process: Write

Week 7:
Morphemes: Latin base flex/flect
Comprehension Skill: Summarize
Grammar: Correlative Conjunctions
Writing: Writing Process: Revise

Week 8:
Morphemes: Latin miss/mit
Vocabulary: Possible sentence approach to vocabulary
Grammar: Ellipses
Writing: Writing Process: Edit

Week 9: 
Morphemes: Greek Bases: geo, meter/metr, therm(o)
Vocabulary skill: Definition Maps
Grammar: Subject/verb agreement
Writing: Apostrophes

Week 10:
Morphemes: Greek bases: aut(o), micro, scope
Fluency Skill: Tongue Twisters
Grammar: subject/verb agreement (continued)
Writing: Sequencing

Week 11:
Morphemes: sub-
Comprehension Skill: Prediction
Grammar: Irregular past tense verbs
Writing: content v. function words

Week 12:
Morphemes: -ive
Comprehension Skill: Infer
Grammar/Writing: CUPS