Mrs. Spangler in the Middle

When I talk to others about teaching vocabulary, no one gets jazzed by it.  Everyone thinks it's boring and an ever so arduous task.  But I'm here to tell you it can be fun and when you use any of these activities to teach word parts like prefixes, suffixes, (and the like) you give your M…

Lately, all the rage has been on the Science of Reading. In Middle School, this means a focus on word parts - prefixes, suffixes, root words, and base words.  These are the critical components to making reading comprehension gains with our students, but let's be real - this is not the most ex…

When I first heard about the Science of Reading, I was sure it was some new-fangled way to box up my teaching as a middle school ELA teacher.   Then there was a required course from my district in order to maintain my certification.  I begrudgingly began the course but then my eyes were opened:  …

It was a new school year and I was beginning to realize that I had some students who were struggling to write sentences, some students who were struggling to write paragraphs, and some students who had never heard the word "essay" before.  And they were all in the same room at the same …