About the author
Mark Pennington, M.A.
Reading specialist, ELA teacher, and the writer of every page on this site. Thirty-six years in classrooms from fourth grade to community college, and one stubborn habit: test first, then teach.
In Mark’s words
Why I still taught spelling
At my last middle school I taught with 14 highly skilled ELA teachers. None of them taught spelling. When I mentioned in a department meeting that I still did, they were curious why. I said my kids needed it, and asked whether theirs did. They blamed the elementary teachers, brought up Einstein, and settled on “We don’t know.”
So I emailed them the audio file of my diagnostic spelling test and offered to correct the results. A week later the mastery matrices were in their boxes. Most students had a few spelling-pattern gaps. Some had many. Nobody had known, because nobody had looked.
That is the idea behind everything I publish. Assess first. Teach grade-level standards to the whole class while each student works on the gaps the assessment found. They catch up while they keep up.
The road here
Classrooms first, publishing second
- University of Southern CaliforniaMagna cum laude.
- UCLA teaching credentialThen straight into the classroom.
- Thirty-six years teaching ELAElementary, middle school, high school and community college — most of it in grades 7 and 8.
- District reading specialistM.A. Education (Reading Specialist), CSU Sacramento. Built intervention programs district-wide.
- Pennington Publishing, 2005Started publishing the programs written for his own students.
- Today41 programs, 780+ blog articles, and the free diagnostic-assessment toolkit.
Teacher-owned since 2005 · Sierra Foothills, California
Off the clock
Sierra Foothills, Northern California. Songwriter and musician — the spelling-rule raps are his — and an avid day hiker.
Talk to Mark
Questions about fit or grade level?
FAQ
Questions teachers ask
What format are the files?
Digital download. You get printable PDF files immediately after checkout; nothing is shipped.
How is it licensed?
Per teacher. One license covers one teacher and every class that teacher teaches, with unlimited student copies for those classes.
Can my school pay by purchase order?
Yes. Email the purchase order and the teachers' email addresses to penningtonpublishing7@gmail.com; download links go out the same business day.
Who wrote the program?
Mark Pennington, M.A., a reading specialist with 36 years teaching ELA from elementary school through community college.