We’re offering a seven week in-person training this summer for K-2 grade teachers. June 21, June 28, July 12, July 19, July 26, August 2, and August 9.

Early bird pricing is $750 until April 30. After that it’s $840. Click here to register.

We’re going to cover all the basics of teaching beginning literacy skills to young children. Our training consists of seven 3-hour classes over the course of 7 weeks. Each Saturday we’ll explore and discuss the content, and engage in lesson demonstrations. I’ll have my curriculum, code charts, and relevant literacy tools on hand. Questions will be welcome and encouraged.

Participants will be given homework to complete between sessions, in order to lead to thoughtful integration of the course content. This will consist of watching videos, reading articles, writing essays, and directing lessons with students. They’ll receive copies of our linguistic code charts, as well as sample packs of our curriculum to use as part of homework assignments. At the end of the 7 weeks, participants will each receive a certificate. They’ll be immensely better prepared and inspired for teaching beginning readers this coming school year. 

WEEK 1: HOW TO TEACH BEGINNING LITERACY
Saturday March 29, 2025 10:00-1:00
and again on Saturday June 21, 2025 10:00-1:00
You’ll learn the basics of teaching our complex code effectively - with a linguistic approach to instruction. We’ll discuss common pitfalls of teaching beginning literacy, and how to avoid them. We’ll talk about what it means to teach in a sound-to-print orientation, and why it’s so crucially important that we do.

This is the introductory course in a six part series. It’s also a stand-alone course, in which we’ll touch on lots of the issues that’ll be covered in the subsequent classes. People who sign up for just this week will come away inspired, and much more capable of teaching the complex English alphabet code to beginners, avoiding all those common pitfalls we find in early literacy instruction. They’ll know exactly how to develop phonemic awareness in young learners this school year, and why it’s everything when it comes to laying a proper foundation with literacy. 

Here are some of the things we’ll be covering: 

-The nature of the English alphabet code - why it’s so hard to learn and tricky to teach
-The prevalence of bad teaching practices that lead to dyslexia - and how to avoid them
-What it means to teach in a sound-to-print orientation, and why it’s so crucially important that we do
-Child development - how children learn best, and what that means for literacy instruction
-How to keep the logic of the code clear
-The learning objectives for literacy development - grade by grade, K-2
-Scaffolding the code’s complexity for young children - how to teach the simple parts of the code first, then build as the child’s intellect grows.
-The supreme importance phonemic awareness
-The essential sub skills for reading and writing, and how to build them with specific lessons, games, and activities
-Why early success with literacy is so important for the development of confidence
-How to create opportunities for young learners to gain success with the code
-Why confidence is so important to the development of literacy skills
-How to help dyslexic kids

WEEK 2: THE NATURE OF THE ENGLISH ALPHABET CODE
Saturday, June 28, 2025 10:00-1:00
We’ll explore the phonological nature of the code, and why phonemic awareness is the most important predictor of success with it. We’ll tell you why the basis of our code is actually the sounds of our spoken language, NOT the letters themselves, and certainly not their names! The simple truth is that the code has been taught backwards for hundreds of years. I’ll show you a new scientifically accurate ‘Basic Code’ that’s mapped to 40 English phonemes. Knowledge of the ‘Complex’ and ‘Advanced’ levels of the code are carefully mapped to this ‘Basic Code’ which serves as a foundation for mastery of reading, writing, and spelling. 

I’m going to break down the learning objectives, knowledge, and skills taught at each level of the curriculum, from Kindergarten through third grade. I’ll teach you about the levels of complexity inherent in the code, from spelling variation to code overlap, and how to scaffold it for learners of all ages. Teachers must have a supreme understanding of the complex nature of the code, in order to teach it effectively. We’ll talk about ways to merge child development with the rigors of the code’s complexity. We’ll talk about simple ways to train healthy reflexes for reading and writing, starting with the simple (but not obvious) logic of the English alphabet code. 

We’ll talk about the critical difference between phonological awareness and phonemic awareness. We’ll talk about why we must eliminate the teaching of all other units of speech besides the phoneme, including ‘word families,’ syllable chunking, letter name chanting, and the memorization of words ‘by sight.’ These things are extremely common in kindergarten and first grade classrooms, leading to widespread reading failure. 

WEEK 3: HOW CHILDREN LEARN BEST
Saturday, July 12, 2025 10:00-1:00
Educators may have heard the phrase, “Reach em to teach em.” Children are concrete thinkers. They’re active, imaginative, and inquisitive, with short attention spans. They learn best when allowed to explore and discover, moving their bodies and talking with peers. They enjoy novelty, and playing games. Children need to experience success to gain confidence in the pursuit of competence. 

When we understand children, we can engage them so that our teaching is effective. We’ll talk about scaffolding our teaching, moving from the simple to complex, so children are never confused or overwhelmed. We’ll talk about how to make learning concrete, fun, and engaging. We’ll discuss differences among learners, and how to adapt lessons accordingly. We’ll talk about how positive early experiences with literacy lead to success, and how the reverse is also true. 

We’ll discuss the way traditional ‘spelling rules’ involve logic that’s beyond the ability for young children to remember. We’ll talk about children’s natural propensity for pattern recognition - and how to apply it to the learning of our spelling code. We’ll talk about ways teachers can make sure their students are successful within each and every lesson. We’ll talk about how to use praise, and build rapport with young learners. 

WEEK 4: HANDWRITING
Saturday July 19, 2025 10:00-1:00
Children learn best through movement, and writing is movement made visible. This week we’ll share the basics of teaching proper pencil grip and letter formation in the kindergarten year. We’ll teach you why these things are so important for young children starting their literacy journeys. We’ll teach how to orient children to letter formation by engaging the imagination, and using sensory materials and games. We’ll teach how to teach letter-sound associations while also learning to write. We’ll teach the importance of mnemonic devices and starting dots. We’ll teach you to orient to double writing lines, instead of old-school manuscript lines. We’ll teach you the logical groupings of certain letters, and which order to teach them in. 

We’ll explore an array of fine motor and whole body movements that support handwriting, and activities that engage them. Crafts, drawing, and active games support literacy development, and help make learning fun and memorable for children in kindergarten. 

You’ll learn why handwriting instruction in kindergarten is so essential for ensuring success with each and every part of literacy instruction subsequently. You’ll learn how to give repeated practice with a wide variety of writing and art media. You’ll learn how to remediate bad writing habits of older students, and how to help students who feel self conscious about their writing. We’ll talk about how to give error corrections. We’ll go over creating meaningful writing assignments for students at the very beginning levels, and how to teach them to copy short bits of text accurately. We’ll teach how to use the language of directed drawing to direct the creation of lines for letters. 

We’ll talk about using proper handwriting instruction for transforming the tendency of students to write letters and numbers backwards, which is very common for young children. The most common example of this is reversing lowercase b’s and d’s.

WEEK 5: THE LITERACY SUB SKILLS
Saturday July 26, 2025 10:00-1:00
Phonemic awareness underlies all the skills which unlock our phonological code, including blending, segmenting, and phoneme manipulation. We’ll go over each one, explaining how they play a part in reading and writing activities. We’ll also talk about how teachers unknowingly subvert phonemic awareness through misguided teaching practices. I’m going to share an assessment you can use to detect deficits in each skill area, as well as gaps in code knowledge. Then we’re going to show you lessons, activities, and strategies for strengthening these skills, one at a time. We’ll show you how to use manipulatives to make learning concrete for learners, then how to give just the right amount and kind of repeated practice to get good at the skills being taught. 

While the vast majority of students have no trouble ingraining the ‘sub skills’ reflexively when given the opportunity, some students have sensory processing disorders, are on the autism spectrum, or have general learning disabilities that make developing these sub skills more difficult. We’ll talk about how to develop a plan for remediation of students with these issues. 

WEEK 6: THE CURRICULUM
Saturday August 2, 2025 10:00-1:00
In this class, participants are going to use the curriculum. They’ll experience it as their students will, as a process of discovery. Things that are discovered, rather than taught, make a bigger impression on kids. 

It all starts with the word cards. Open a little drawer and find inside a set of 1” X 4.25” laminated cards, with a word printed on each one. Then find the header cards and spread them out on a table. You’ll read and sort the cards, one at a time. As you do, you’ll start to notice spelling patterns. The English alphabet code reveals itself to you. 

But reading is only one side of literacy. In order to ingrain the memory with relevant spelling patterns, students need to write. I’ve created worksheets with 10 lessons, adaptable to all the word card sets. We’ll complete the worksheets, and talk about the learning objectives associated with each one. 

At this point in the course, participants take home a sample set of curriculum to use with a volunteer student to get practice using it. When they return for the sixth class, they’ll be well familiar with it, and ready to learn how to adapt it. 

WEEK 7: ADAPTING THE CURRICULUM
Saturday August 9, 2025 10:00-1:00
We’ll start this class off with a share and tell: participants will show us their student volunteer’s work, and tell the group about the experience of working with the curriculum. Now that everyone has had a chance to use it, they’re ready to learn how to adapt it to meet the needs of all learners.

I’ll show you all the ways to adapt assignments to meet different learning styles, interests, and abilities. We’ll discuss each and every accommodation that can be made with the worksheets. We’ll talk about student choice, and negotiating homework with the student. We’ll talk about how to gauge how much repetition (and what kind) each student needs to learn the content. 

In addition, I’ll talk about how teachers can use the curriculum to inspire various language arts lessons. With these worksheets, teachers can focus on teaching many aspects of writing, in addition to the spelling code. 

Early bird pricing is $750 until April 30. After that it’s $840. Click here to register.