Investment: $299

With so much discussion around phonics and word study, we can get a little bogged down with the informational overload. What is the difference between phonemic and phonological? Which should I teach first: short vowels or long vowels? How much time should I spend on all of this? Let’s clear it up together as we unpack:

  • The science behind WHY we teach phonics
  • How to support students in building new pathways in the brain to support literacy and learning
  • Text types and their purposes
  • How to encourage transfer into students’ reading and writing


In this course, we’ll talk about efficient, research-based (and FREE!) assessment tools to meet the needs of our diverse and multilingual learners in order to maximize learning and transfer of our written code. Both Natashya and Hannah will bring with them the strategies and moves they have gathered from around that world that allow for efficient and effective phonics instruction. It will be practical, purposeful, and full of use-right-away tools to add to your teacher toolkit! Come by yourself… or come with your whole team - what a powerful way to start the year strong. 

Course curriculum

    1. Course Information

    1. Padlet

    1. Introduction and Course Overview

    2. What is ‘The Simple View of Reading’?

    3. How do we learn to read and write? The Four-Part Processing Model

    4. How do we learn to read and write? Orthographic Mapping & Eye Movement Research

    5. What is cognitive load theory? What are the elements of effective instruction?

    6. Word Recognition Sub-skills: Phonological Awareness

    7. How do phonics patterns progress?

    1. What is sight recognition? How do we build sight recognition for irregular words?

    2. Tackling Time: What should we fit in?

    3. How might we assess word recognition?

    4. How might we teach phonics? Let’s live it!

    5. How might we match text types to instructional purpose?

    1. How might we teach syllables?

    2. How might we keep developing readers engaged?

    1. Complete this short survey and get your course completion certificate!

About this course

  • $299.00
  • 17 lessons
  • 2.5 hours of video content

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Course Facilitators

Natashya Hays

Natashya Hays has spent much of her 22 years in education as a classroom teacher, putting children at the center of teaching, learning, and decision making. Natashya has worked as a literacy intervention teacher, ELL support teacher, a PYP/Curriculum coordinator, and also a literacy coach. She has lead out on international conferences about Word Study, training teachers in how to make phonics, grammar, and spelling efficient and joyful. Natashya excels at helping teachers establish inquiry-rich, research-informed, responsive literacy practice in schools around the world.

Hannah Fernweh

Hannah Fernweh is a lifelong learner specializing in best practices for multilingual students, translanguaging, culturally relevant pedagogy, and students with exceptionalities. She has worked in public and international schools as a teacher, coach, and department head and has a particular passion for meeting the literacy needs of linguistically, culturally, and neurologically diverse learners. Currently, she is delving into how different writing systems can impact literacy development within the brain and how exceptionalities can influence how one acquires languages and literacies. When supporting schools, Hannah guides educators to understand how the brain learns to speak and read in order to develop clear, practical plans to support diverse learners.