The Spiral WarmUps Knowledge Base offers research, teaching tips, and tutorials for all the best practices in word study, reading fluency, and reading comprehension.
Explore the frequently asked questions (FAQs), search for your topic, or browse the support articles.
In addition to the knowledge base, Spiral WarmUps provides professional learning courses. These courses are self-paced and allow you to earn independent study CPE credit.
There are so many amazing and engaging reading warm-ups that it’s easy to get lost…unless you know the 5 basic areas of your member dashboard. Account Warm-Ups Literacy Sequences Support News As always the reading warm-ups are no-prep word study, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension warm-ups. If you’re a member, access your account here >> Your […]
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Three Activities for Teaching Context Clues We just released the free Word Meaning Warm-Ups, and they’re focused on context clues and vocabulary development. The great thing about the warm-ups is that there are three highly engaging activities students work through. In this quick post, I’ll share the three activities in the context clues warm-ups:Context MatchingWord MatrixWeekly […]
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Word Meaning Warm-Ups We’re finally here! After two years of developing free word fluency and word building warm-ups and working with over 100 classrooms, we’re ready to announce the free word meaning warm-ups! These warm-ups are going to impact vocabulary development in grades 2-6 in just 2-6 minutes of class each day. They are aimed at […]
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Why is it that teaching reading can be so challenging? What are the keys to helping struggling readers? In this free professional learning course, we’ll share what we know about word study. Crack the code for struggling readers. It really is in the details. There are specific gaps in word knowledge that can prevent readers […]
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Why is that you can teach your heart out, but next year the students seem as if they’ve never “heard it” before? The problem was not your teaching. You engaged them. They practiced it. They understood it. The problem is long-term retention. The solution is consistent, research-based spiral review. It’s just how the brain works. In this […]
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Double Consonant Activities We just released a new week of double consonant activities in the form of an interactive, no-prep video warm-up. The activities are called Word Builder. In this post, I’ll share: When to use Double Consonants The Floss Rule and Double Consonants with Suffixes Details About the Double Consonant Warm-Up Activities Word Builder […]
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Congrats to our Awesome Members! We just added another week of warm-ups to your membership. Your word study warm-ups just got bigger! You now have this fast-paced spelling activity: Speed Speller. You’ll see it in your account or you can log in and jump straight to them here. What’s in Speed Speller? Students practice spelling patterns […]
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This Give It A Shot article was updated June 2019 along with the newly updated free word study warm-ups. Give It A Shot is one of the first activities students do in the Word Fluency 1 unit, which focuses on basic word decoding practice for grades 2-3 and intervention in grades 3-6. It’s a straight-forward activity […]
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The warm-ups in Fluency Builder Level 2 are designed to increase reading fluency: speed, accuracy, and working memory. Students will read at a forced rate and maintain meaning across a paragraph. Then they answer basic comprehension questions. Everything is based on leveled texts, repeated reading, forced fluency, and timing.Fluency Builder Level 2, What?Level two is […]
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At some point, you might find problems with video streaming. Video playback problems are often due to internet bandwidth, filters, firewalls, or browsers. While there may be bandwidth issues, usually, the problem lies in the filtering and firewalls from school districts. Here are a few quick fixes that work on most systems: Restart the computer […]
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Fluency 2 is a spiral warm-up unit in the free Word Fluency course. But what skills are in these warm-ups? Who are they for? What will students do during these 10 days? Let’s answer these questions as we walk through Fluency 2 Days 1-10. If you’re not a member, you can review our free membership […]
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Achieving 233% Growth with Daily Spiral ReviewToday, I’d like to share 5 techniques that are needed for successful spiral review – and I’m talking about getting more than twice the growth compared to classrooms that don’t use daily spiral review in reading comprehension instruction! But first, a big thank you for all of the comments and […]
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Scaffolding the Word Sorts (Spelling 1 Tutorial) If you’re moving into the spelling units, you will find a very challenging activity: timed and open word sorts. These word work activities show in the days marked as “spiral review”. Here’s what you need to know to help your students. Challenges in the Spiral Reviews The timed […]
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Tips for the Open Sort in Spelling 1 If you’re working on Spelling 1, your students will find a challenging thinking task on day 5. It’s their first true open sort in the word study unit. Here are some tips to help your students find success as they struggle through this word study task. And […]
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Two Tips for Best Results in Spelling 1 If you’re ready to begin using the spelling spiral warm-ups, there are two things to do first. If you skip these two steps, your students might miss out on learning the spelling patterns in Spelling 1. Ensure your students are proficient the decoding patterns from Fluency […]
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SaveSavePhoneme-grapheme mapping is a research-based activity that helps early and transitional readers build word recognition skills. Phonemes are the sounds we hear in words. Graphemes are the letters that represent the sounds. This activity can be challenging for 3rd and 4th-grade students – even your strong readers! With a little bit of practice, it will help […]
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What levels are the warm-ups for? Consonant blends looks too simple, or is it? These are questions I’ve received several times in the last few days, so I thought I’d give a quick answer by walking through the scaffolding in days 1-10 of the Fluency 1 unit.Systematic Scaffolding of DifficultyThat is a real fancy way of […]
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The activities in Fluency 1 (our first unit in word study warm-ups) are designed to engage and build visual memory in upper elementary students. The fluency activities include:Word Racer Blending PhonemesWord SumsWord SortsA Variety of Blending Activities (oral, choral, and written).__TVE_SHORTCODE_RAW___Who should do these activities in Fluency1?The activities in the Fluency 1 unit could be used […]
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