Most elementary and many secondary teachers are expected to teach their students reading skills; however, many feel unprepared or at a loss for what systems need to be in place to best meet the needs of their students. As a profession, we must consider how to support teachers and and create systems to best meet the needs of students. Coaches, Principals and teachers from Kansas schools will share their expertise as they have implemented a Multi-tiered Reading System and their suggestions for supporting teachers through the process. Bring questions and hear from these panelists that are making reading happen for everyone.
Learn how to teach students to easily and accurately read and spell long words. The secret is to focus on vowels, not on rules. Participants will learn to use multi-sensory techniques to teach students to break words into syllables for reading and spelling. This method is explicit, systematic, and multi-sensory. It is also easy! This session is appropriate for students of all ages. The techniques can be used in kindergarten to help students read words such as batman, sunset, and picnic, and in upper grades to help students read citadel, tranquilize, and Madagascar.
Teachers often ask us how to include decodable readers during phonics instruction. This session answers that question. Teachers will learn how decodable texts enhance phonics instruction, when to start using decodable text, when it is appropriate to move away from decodable text, and how to track students’ progress with decodable texts. Teachers will also learn the importance of using decodable text to practice a new advanced phonics pattern is taught, even though students are capable of reading grade level text independently.
Learn how to teach students to easily and accurately read and spell long words. The secret is to focus on vowels, not on rules. Participants will learn to use multi-sensory techniques to teach students to break words into syllables for reading and spelling. This method is explicit, systematic, and multi-sensory. It is also easy! This session is appropriate for students of all ages. The techniques can be used in kindergarten to help students read words such as batman, sunset, and picnic, and in upper grades to help students read citadel, tranquilize, and Madagascar.
In our work with school districts around the country, we are finding that the curriculum in many Kindergarten classes is not preparing all students for success in learning to read. Some students arrive in Kindergarten with fewer skills in place than the curriculum expects. Other students are not able to move at the pace of the curriculum. And some students are simply overwhelmed by the presentation of too much information at one time. To keep these students from becoming struggling readers in Kindergarten and Grade One, teachers need to clearly understand pre-reading skills that are necessary to be prepared to read, know which skills are weak or missing for students getting ready to learn to read, and have effective teaching strategies. In this session, we will present a comprehensive map of pre-reading skills that must be mastered prior to phonics instruction. The map presents a logical sequence of instruction, and it guides teachers to break skills instruction into manageable pieces. The session will include practicing some key strategies for instruction of these skills. We will provide a complimentary informal diagnostic assessment that teachers can use to determine if a student has mastered the needed pre-reading skills to become a successful reader. The assessment also targets skills a student still needs to master to be ready to learn to read.
A student has clearly developed phonological and phonemic awareness and demonstrates that he or she has learned letter names and letter sounds. Yet the student does not move beyond reading by sounding each letter aloud then blending the sounds into a word. Many teachers describe their lowest students this way, and they don’t know how to help the student move to whole word reading. We’ve helped a number of students who are stuck at the sound-by-sound reading stage. Most students we encounter don’t move easily beyond sound-by-sound reading are in first, second and third grades; but we have also worked with a few of these students in fourth and fifth grades who are in special education or Title I classes. In this session, participants will learn the steps to take to help this student, receive some sample exercises to help students move beyond sound-by-sound reading, and practice some of the exercises.
