Events for February 22, 2025 - February 15, 2022

Mastering basic reading and writing skills is core to healthy human development. When teaching struggling readers, it is tempting to regard challenges with letter production as a secondary issue. This session includes one case study where writing instruction occurs for 5-10 minutes daily. Samples are presented that show the change in writing over the course of 150 lessons. We get into the nuts and bolts of how to do effective, simple handwriting instruction that develops the fundamental skills necessary for later growth in written expression. You will learn several techniques for helping all children develop the accurate and automatic letter production [...]

In this presentation, Svetlana shares the key implications of her dissertation findings, a mixed methods survey study exploring the ways in which 624 general k-2 classroom teachers around the nation define, understand, and teach sight word development through an orthographic mapping lens. Three key recurring sight word definitions were identified: Any word recognized instantly (38.5%), a phonetically irregular word(16.8%), and a high-frequency word (HFW) (13.1%), with a third who agreed with at least two or more definitions. A comparative analysis of open-ended responses identified 45 daily “essential” sight word practices, with only about a third aligned to orthographic mapping principles (n [...]

During this presentation, Mark Shinn will discuss benchmarking assessment. Unfortunately, for too many educators-parents and students, Benchmarking happens as a process or procedure with many unanswered or unasked questions, even as basic as “What is the purpose of Benchmarking, and who decided which tests are given and why?” Additionally, it seems like it is becoming “bogged down” and potentially confused. With more states and schools requiring curriculum aligned to the science of reading. Is Benchmarking aligned to the science of reading? Is it research-based? Are all the measures included in most of Benchmark testing practices necessary? Additionally, more states are requiring dyslexia screening. Will dyslexia screening be different than current Benchmark testing? In this webinar, Mark will present his perspective based on his analysis as an early contributor to the development of benchmark assessment using Curriculum-Based Measures (CBM), including early literacy measures for use in the Problem-Solving Model and MTSS from a research and, importantly, school-based practice model. Lots of Questions, lots of questions, and hopefully fun!

Based on Dr. Ness’s 2023 book Read Alouds for All Learners, this webinar focuses on maximizing the potential of read alouds across the content areas, by building background knowledge, carving time for explicit vocabulary instruction, and thinking aloud to build comprehension. The webinar focuses on the role of read alouds in the science of reading, and does the following: Overviews the research and data around read alouds Explores the importance of background knowledge in comprehension Presents a planning protocol to maximize the effectiveness across content areas