Fluency is essential for skillful and motivated reading but is often misunderstood. Fluent reading is NOT fast reading! This session defines reading fluency and clarifies the link between fluency and comprehension. The role of fluency assessments and effective fluency instruction will also be discussed.
Melissa Jones-Bromenshenkel is a professor and graduate coordinator in the Department of Special Education at Eastern Illinois University. Dr. Jones is currently partnering with Eastern Illinois Area of Special Education (EIASE) on the SLD Supports grant through which she is serving as the Chair of the Dyslexia Handbook Work group. In addition to working towards preparing quality teachers and ensuring all students have the right to learn to read, Melissa serves as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) and an Educational Surrogate.
Cognitive neuroscientist Elizabeth Norton PhD (Northwestern University) will discuss her research around RAN and its relation to reading ability, work she began as a doctoral student with Maryanne Wolf at Tufts and continues as the Director of the LEARN Lab at Northwestern. Her lab's recent meta-analysis is the first to assess RAN's unique and significant role as a predictor of later reading! Participants will gain not just a deeper understanding of RAN and its impact on reading, but also practical implication for both screening and intervention. To register, visit https://bit.ly/TRLILRAN
Come hear Dr. Jan Wasocicz provide a clear definition of speech-to-print instruction (the what), helpful examples of speech-to-print methods (the why), and practical teaching ideas to put into immediate practice (the how).
Teachers the world over are realizing that spelling is more than simply transcribing sounds, and thank goodness for that! The etymological, orthographic and morphological layers of the English writing system need to be understood and taught from the first year of school if we are to give all children the best chance of becoming successful spellers. This practical webinar will show you where to begin and how far you can go when you think beyond letters and sounds.
Join author Joan Sedita to explore the multiple components need for fluent, skilled writing on November 7, 2023 at 6:30 pm CST.
Structured Literacy is a comprehensive and evidence-based approach for literacy instruction that is based upon language skills and the need to connect oral and written language to enable literacy. It includes foundational skills of reading and writing in addition to the development of oral language and comprehension. In this joint session co-presented by Dr. Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan and Dr. Claude Goldenberg, evidence-based practices for the successful development of literacy among English learners will be described. To begin the session, Dr. Goldenberg will discuss critical differences between oral and written language and the implications for instruction for ELs / emergent bilinguals; Dr. Cárdenas-Hagan will discuss screening, progress monitoring, and instruction at Tiers 1, 2, and 3. Demonstration of effective literacy instruction for English learners that builds upon first language and literacy knowledge for the development of second language literacy will be modeled. Following their presentations, the speakers will engage in a facilitated conversation about structured literacy and assessment for multilingual learners, with plenty of time for audience questions.
National and state literacy measures indicate that African American students are consistently outperformed on these assessments by their counterparts. Without utilizing a deficit mindset, this presentation will focus on possible reasons for the underperformance and emphasize the knowledge teachers need to teach African American students the structure of the English language. What must teachers know about the phonological and morphological features that African American students use and how these features differ from the structure of English? To close the opportunity gap between African American students and their counterparts, this presentation will focus on research-based strategies for teaching African American students’ skills such as phonemic awareness, phonics, spelling, and grammar with language variation in mind. Register at: https://bit.ly/TRLILPittman.
The ability to read is a great thing, but it is not the goal. The goal is something else, something that is easier to reach if you can read than if you can’t. Reading is a piece of that puzzle, an important piece, but not the only piece. Dr. Dykstra will discuss the pieces essential to all children, how they interact with each other, and how, in recent years, those pieces have evolved very rapidly in ways we should be aware of if we want our children to have the best chance possible at a life they can be glad to live.
