Julia Armstrong discusses the hands-on advisory services she and her cadre will provide to supplement Dr. Tim Rasinski’s virtual appearance at the upcoming SoMLA conference in Maryland. An Interview by Dr. Sam Bommarito
The upcoming SoMLA’s (Reading Conference) is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for both Julia and me. What is happening is that I am interviewing Tim Rasinski at a conference dinner being held in Tim’s honor. People attending the dinner will see Tim arrive via a live feed. I will be on stage conducting a blog interview. People attending this event will get to see all this live. I’ll be on stage; Tim’s real-time feed will be displayed on a large screen, visible to all attendees. Among the topics Tim and I will discuss is a book he co-authored with Lynn Kulick, Ph.D., and David Harrison. The book’s title is The Fluency Development Lesson Plan: Closing the Reading Gap.
After the interview is finished, Julia Armstrong and her cadre of volunteers will circulate among the tables. Each participant will be given copies of books from Benchmark’s Decodable Readers Theatre single-copy set. They will be able to keep these books, so that means all participants will be getting “take-home materials they can use on Monday”. For my readers interested in attending this session, here is the conference link. This session is one of the add-ons you get to choose from. I hope to see many of you there!
Here are the time-stamped talking points for the interview (They allow you to go to the sections that interest you the most first)
Here is a link to the YouTube Interview:
Julia’s Other Resources:
Julia and her husband create puppet skits incorporating songs or raps to reinforce phonics skills. If you like these skits, be sure to subscribe to their channel.
https://www.youtube.com/@wordworkwonders4814
The puppet skits also align with decodable texts. These texts are located on Amazon:
Julia also created passages for the “Words Their Way” series, including multisyllabic passages that align with the SIPPS Challenge program. These stories are located at:
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Word-Work-Wonders
Final Thoughts
As I said earlier, taking part in this event with Dr. Tim Rasinski is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I have known Tim for a very long time and have watched the evolution of the FDL from its earliest days to now. Tim’s latest book about FDL is an amazing resource for teachers. It has all the materials you need to conduct a FULL YEAR’S worth of Fluency Development Lessons. The only cost beyond buying the book is printing the support materials, which include word ladders from Tim and poems and passages by the very talented David Harrison. Julie found she could use these materials with her 4th and 5th-grade kiddos, with some amazing results. Here is a LINK to her blog post about that. It includes information about the data she gathered on the impact on her kids. Julie is not alone in finding the significant impact Tim’s work on repeated reading has had. I will detail that information during my keynote at this conference. The biggest takeaway from that keynote presentation is this: teaching fluency using Tim’s methods has produced effect sizes larger than those for phonics. I make it clear that I see his work as an addition to, not a replacement for, phonics. I’m asking educators to imagine what it would be like to adopt both.
Dare to Dream!
Dr. Sam Bommarito (aka, the guy in the center taking flak from all sides)
Copyright 2026 by Dr. Sam Bommarito. Views/interpretations expressed here are solely this author’s views and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other person or organization. Materials from Benchmark used in this entry are copyrighted by Benchmark. Tim, Julie, and I want to acknowledge the generous support Benchmark has provided by sponsoring this event and providing the take-home materials to the participants.
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