SMARTER Intervention

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We help educators confidently implement structured literacy through simple routines that connect PA, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and writing into instruction that actually flows.

Who or what?⁠Did (does/is) what?⁠When, where, why, or how?⁠⁠If I had a dollar for the number of times I say this in a we...
04/24/2026

Who or what?⁠
Did (does/is) what?⁠
When, where, why, or how?⁠
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If I had a dollar for the number of times I say this in a week I would have many, many dollars!⁠
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This is probably my most-used phrase in my literacy intervention block because it's a way we work to build fluency at the sentence level. It's a question I use to guide our annotation strategy for reading comprehension. And it's the phrase I use to make sure students are writing syntactically correct sentences at the most basic level before expanding them out.⁠
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Try it out this week, have students identify each part of a sentence; it doesn't have to be perfect; it's not really about diagramming, it's about pulling key details and information easily.⁠
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And, if you want to see how we use this strategy to help our students edit their (not always so perfectly edited) writing, check out this link to our Spotlight PD where we cover exactly what this looks like: https://smarterintervention.com/ondemand-pd/sentences-and-spelling

Ever had students come back with fifty Post-it notes for their "annotations" or highlighter explosion over the entire pa...
04/23/2026

Ever had students come back with fifty Post-it notes for their "annotations" or highlighter explosion over the entire page after reading a passage and then ask, "What do we do with all of this now?"⁠
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And then you look at it, and think...great question...⁠
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Now to be fair, the annotation strategy came from a good place. We wanted students to pause and think while they were reading. We don't need them racing through their reading without thinking...⁠
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But between the symbols, the acronyms, the color coding, and the sticky notes... it was a lot. And it wasn't actually helping them comprehend. It was just keeping them busy.⁠
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What we realized is that not everything can (or should) happen while students are reading. Their brains need space. When we started breaking things into what happens before reading, during reading, and after reading... it cleared a lot of things up.⁠
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We walk through the routine we use in our free SMARTER Literacy Routines Guide.⁠
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Comment "ROUTINES" and we'll send it your way.

We are teaching all the right skills, and yet somehow, it still kind of feels like something is missing or just not quit...
04/21/2026

We are teaching all the right skills, and yet somehow, it still kind of feels like something is missing or just not quite coming together the way we had hoped.⁠
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So, good news, you're teaching all the right things already, we just need students to start to see how everything comes together. ⁠
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If you'd like to see how we bring all the individual skills together, comment "Routines" and we'll send you our free guide that walks you through it.

For a long time, I taught vocabulary using word lists, and I realized that was about as effective as having my students ...
04/17/2026

For a long time, I taught vocabulary using word lists, and I realized that was about as effective as having my students memorize spelling lists. They'd memorize it for the week, then "p**f" gone.⁠
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Now, instead of having my students memorize specific words or definitions, we focus on practicing the vocabulary framework and having them identify words in their reading or listening that they would rate a "1" or "2" on the vocabulary rating scale (basically, I don't know this word or what it means). This requires significant executive functioning, and honestly, it takes time for students to even be able to do this effectively at all (but it's super important, so worth the time).⁠
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Then we choose a few words students rated as a "1" or "2" and look up an image and/or talk through the word together. This gives the ownership of vocabulary back to students and allows them to recognize when lack of word knowledge is impacting comprehension.⁠
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Comment "Routines" if you want a copy of ours!

A question that pops up often is how we use data to inform our instruction. Notice I said "inform" here because the data...
04/15/2026

A question that pops up often is how we use data to inform our instruction. Notice I said "inform" here because the data does not need to be in charge. I, as the interventionist, am in charge!⁠
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That being said, I absolutely use data to inform my literacy instruction. I typically work in a "Tier 3" setting, meaning that students have had individualized standardized assessments before working with me. ⁠
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As a literacy specialist, I am focusing on the WIAT-4 (or any other standardized academic assessment) to start thinking about goals and instruction. This student demonstrated an identified area of need in receptive vocabulary, word reading, reading comprehension, and reading fluency (I want those scores to be at a standard score of 90 or higher to feel good about her getting full benefit in the gen ed classroom alone).⁠
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My next step for students is to give a Placement Screener, so I know exactly where to begin instruction. This particular student struggled to identify sounds, decode, and spell words with consonants and short vowels so I needed to start at the very beginning with her.⁠
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Because she had difficulty across the board on the WIAT-4, I gave a Foundations level baseline looking at PA, phonics, vocab, fluency, comp, and writing. Once we finished the Foundations level lessons she needed, I administered an alternate version of the baseline assessment and was thrilled to see growth across the board.⁠
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That being said, curriculum-based measures help me know that she's picking up the content and lessons I'm explicitly teaching, but I also need to know if she's closing the gap. I administer the WIAT-4 once per year to see where we're at.⁠
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She demonstrated incredibly solid growth on the WIAT-4, and based on this trajectory, I would expect her to be on grade level by December. This kind of data analysis is what makes all the work worth it. I feel like this super happy dog meme every time I do these assessments, it's truly the best ever.⁠
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Let me know in the comments if you’re interested in learning more about how we use data to inform our instruction, or feel free to drop a question.

Do your students seem to forget all the skills you know you taught them? 🙋‍♀️ Lindsey and I were chatting on one of our ...
04/15/2026

Do your students seem to forget all the skills you know you taught them? 🙋‍♀️ Lindsey and I were chatting on one of our recent podcasts about this.⁠
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You definitely taught the skills, they practiced them, you assessed them, and they looked like they had it, and then...⁠
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The next year, they tell their new teacher they've never learned that or never heard of that when they bring up the exact same concepts. And you're standing there like, wait...we definitely talked about that. I have the exact lessons where we went over that.⁠
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It's not that students didn't learn it; they did. They just didn't internalize when and how to use the skills beyond the lesson. So instead, we need to find a way to bring in consistency, because when students practice the same skills inside a routine that they use over and over, they start to see, "Oh...this is what I always do when I read (or write)."⁠
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If this happens to you, know that you're not alone, and we've seen a massive difference by incorporating routines that we use again and again with our students so they start to see how everything fits together. ⁠
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Comment "Routines," and we'll send you our free guide so you can see what that looks like.

Have you ever had that moment where you KNOW you taught a comprehension skill... but when students need it in context, i...
04/13/2026

Have you ever had that moment where you KNOW you taught a comprehension skill... but when students need it in context, it's like it never happened?⁠
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We've been there.⁠
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When I first started tackling comprehension in my literacy intervention block, I was teaching comprehension one skill at a time. Main idea one week. Inferences the next. Author's purpose after that. And then we'd get to the passage and students couldn't pull any of it together.⁠
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The skills weren't the problem. The missing piece was a way for students to see how those skills connect during real reading.⁠
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That shift made a massive impact... and it's something we walk through in our free SMARTER Literacy Routines Guide. It's basically giving all those individual comprehension strategies a place to live, so once we teach it explicitly students know how and when to access that particular strategy.⁠
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You can check it out here: https://programs.smarterintervention.com/routines-guide

I have a student I just started working with who was failing his literacy class. In his class, he is reading a computer-...
04/09/2026

I have a student I just started working with who was failing his literacy class. In his class, he is reading a computer-based passage, answering a set of comprehension questions, and then providing a written response.⁠
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I asked him what his strategy was for approaching the task. He said, his strategy was to skip the passage and guess at the questions because that would be fastest.⁠
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I mean...he's not wrong, that certainly is a strategy, but not exactly the one I was looking for. ⁠
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Now, there are tools available here. He can listen to the text read aloud, there's a spot for annotations, but he told me he doesn't really know what to annotate, and it's hard to annotate when you listen to the passage read aloud.⁠
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So here's what we did together: ⁠
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Step 01: Before Reading - This passage was about dystopian fiction, so I asked him what he already knew about dystopian fiction. He didn't have any background knowledge, so I shared a few books/movies like Hunger Games that might fit into that category and shared my background knowledge with him.⁠
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Step 02: During Reading - We read each paragraph and after each one I had him answer "who or what, did what" and we had to pause to talk about what a "fun house mirror at a carnival" was because he had never been to a "carnival."⁠
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Step 03: After Reading - we reviewed our 5 Ws, organized our annotation stick notes (who or what, did what) for each paragraph into a sequence, generated a main idea, made connections to the fun house mirror specifically (since that was the question we needed to answer), created a compare and contrast specifically to fun house mirrors and dystopian fiction, made an inference about why the author included the analogy, and then talked about what he could take away from the article.⁠
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Bottom Line: We can use computer-based passages and tools to support assessment of comprehension or to provide the content for comprehension instruction, but it's not teaching comprehension. We still have to teach the skills and strategies.⁠
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So let us know, how are you teaching comprehension?!

We're just going to come right out and say it...⁠⁠Our reading and writing proficiency standards were designed to help us...
04/03/2026

We're just going to come right out and say it...⁠
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Our reading and writing proficiency standards were designed to help us improve our literacy instruction, and while they've helped us understand the breadth of skills we need to be teaching, they may actually be keeping us stuck.⁠
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The problem with our proficiency standards is that they've trained us to see teaching literacy as a checklist of skills to teach (and hey, I'm here for a good checklist!!!), but literacy is not a checklist of skills that we teach, students master, and then we move on. ⁠
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What we're actually trying to do is help students create a neural pathway that's so strong and so efficient it no longer requires the same amount of cognitive effort; it becomes so ingrained that we can do it automatically.⁠
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And the only way that happens is through repeated practice, doing the same thing over and over. It's like learning to tie your shoe. You want it to become so automatic that it's effortless, so you can spend your cognitive effort on analyzing and really thinking about what you're reading.⁠
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So while we can think about the specific skills we need to teach (I still use a checklist to mark off each phonics pattern I've covered), we want to spend more time thinking about the routines we're helping students build that really keep those skills active.⁠
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Comment "Routines," and we'll send you our Free Guide so you can see how we organize our literacy instruction around simple, repeatable routines that we use over and over in our instruction.

04/02/2026

Raise your hand if you’re trying to teach students to read and spell using rules that you were never taught 🤚

Nobody taught us these rules either.

You've probably searched for reading rules more than once, bossy r, vowel teams, when to use ck vs. k. Those are some of the most-searched structured literacy topics we see.

It makes sense. When a rule comes up in instruction, you want to get it right.

But most of us were never given a clear, organized place to actually learn them.

So, we end up:

→ Googling specific rules when they come up
→ Relying on sayings that aren't always accurate ("when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking")
→ Feeling confident in some rules but unsure about others
→ Hoping our students don't ask a “rule” question we can't fully answer

Here's the thing. This is a training gap that most educators share. And nobody's got time to be looking these up one at a time, especially when it has a real impact on how students learn to read and spell.

So, what if you had all of those rules organized, connected, and in one place? No more Googling, no more hunting, just a clear place to access the rules, and a framework that helps you and your students understand how they fit into the bigger picture.

That’s why we built the Reading Rules We Teach training, because we saw this over and over, educators doing the work, caring deeply about their students, but not having one clear place where all the rules come together.

This 1-hour on-demand training is $35 and gives you:

✅ A structured walkthrough of the key reading and spelling rules
✅ A Comprehensive Reading Rules Guide (a printable reference you can use during your instruction)
✅ A PD certificate
✅ Lifetime access (rewatch anytime, on your schedule)

This isn't another training that disappears after you watch it. The Reading Rules Guide becomes a reference you'll actually use, during planning, in the middle of a lesson, or when a colleague asks you about a rule.

Comment "Rules" and we'll send you the link to → The Reading Rules We Teach Spotlight PD

P.S. You don't need to know every rule before you start. You just need a clear place to find them.

Is it just me, or does spelling (and especially teaching it) just kind of suck? ⁠⁠My students tell me this all the time,...
04/01/2026

Is it just me, or does spelling (and especially teaching it) just kind of suck? ⁠
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My students tell me this all the time, and they're not wrong...⁠
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Spelling requires an incredibly complex neural connection. We need to listen to the word, consider how many syllables it has, consider how many sounds it has, and differentiate between different types of sounds. ⁠
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Then, we need to think about the different letter pairing options and how the word looks. Which letters would match each sound? Is there a vowel in each syllable (which is why syllable division and syllable type instruction can be helpful)? Then, we need to think about what other letter patterns might work (for example, c, k, ck, ch can all spell /k/). ⁠
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Finally, we get to think about the meaning and consider whether there are any rules to remember (for example, -ck is only used at the end of a closed syllable), are there any prefixes or suffixes to consider (e.g., tax versus tacks), and are there more ways to spell the word based on its meaning (e.g., tock vs talk).⁠
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And what makes this worse? It's not a 1:1 correspondence between letters and sounds, and even words that sound the same may be spelled differently based on meaning. So spelling does suck, but that being said, understanding the "why" behind our language can still help significantly as students are learning. ⁠
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Even if they don't know or remember all the rules, they start to look for patterns. They start to get curious about the language, they think about whether rules might exist, and develop cognitive flexibility...all good things. ⁠
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So we still teach spelling, even if it does suck! 😝 If you want to learn more about the rules we teach, you can check out our Spotlight PD here https://smarterintervention.com/ondemand-pd/reading-rules

A bit of a hot take here, but spelling lists (even patterned spelling lists) aren't the best way to help students genera...
03/31/2026

A bit of a hot take here, but spelling lists (even patterned spelling lists) aren't the best way to help students generalize their spelling rules. ⁠
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Now, we are here for a good phonics-based spelling list to reinforce the introduction of a phonics pattern. In fact, we do it all the time with our students as part of our structured literacy approach. But...⁠
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If all we do is teach spelling using a spelling list focusing on a specific pattern we've just taught, we aren't supporting retention or generalization because students are missing out on a big part of the executive functioning process required in spelling. Students aren't fully activating the prefrontal cortex because we're leading most of the process for them.⁠
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So instead, we ask students to find words in their independent writing, so a sentence they've written or longer-form writing (paragraphs, essays, etc.), and have them underline any word they're not sure they spelled correctly. This supports metacognition (the ability to recognize what we know and what we don't know). ⁠
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You will be so surprised at how many students know they're making spelling mistakes and how many think they have no spelling mistakes, and you're thinking 🧐. ⁠
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Once they've identified words they don't know how to spell, we work through the spelling process with them.⁠
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How many syllables? How many sounds? What type of sounds? Which letters pair with the sounds? Do I see a vowel in each syllable? Are there other letter pattern options that could work? Which rules do I need to think about? Are there prefixes or suffixes? Is there more than one way to spell this word based on its meaning?⁠
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If you're interested in learning more about this process, we've dropped it in our latest Spotlight Professional Development Training, Sentence & Spelling Routines: Building Independent Writers. ⁠
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Learn more at: https://smarterintervention.com/ondemand-pd/sentences-and-spelling

Address

2821 S Parker Road
Aurora, CO
80014

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Monday 7am - 6pm
Tuesday 7am - 6pm
Wednesday 7am - 6pm
Thursday 7am - 6pm
Friday 7am - 6pm

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(303) 309-9135

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We believe that effective reading instruction should be accessible to everyone.

We work directly with students and families providing educational diagnoses such as dyslexia and dysgraphia in addition to research-based instruction to help get struggling students to grade level and beyond.

It’s awful watching a child struggle. You see the brightness, the creativity, but you worry that their love of learning will begin to dim or burn out altogether if something doesn’t change. You feel stuck because you’re not sure what to do next.

We get it. With all the information available out there, it’s hard to sort through what’s reputable from what’s not. And that’s where we come in.