Highlights from International Dyslexia Conference

Some highlights in no particular order:

I did ask Lusisa Moats and Torgeson about Phono-graphix. Both good responses. When I asked Moats about 4 Blocks, she had a cow. She said the phonics was not systematic enough.

Multi-sensory Math Magic:

The more you can involve the whole body, the more likely it will get into long term memory:

Math Tunes: Create math jingles to help concept/skill retention: We did this in small groups and shared. Ideas were cute. After watching my 7 year old this morning give me a concert on her Karaoke machine, I thought I’d bring it to class from time to time for students to do this. They can make up things to common music and sing on micophone.

Treasure Chest:
Create treasure chest for your classroom. The chest can then b sorted, classified, and then resorted. Some everyday items are paper clips, rubber bands, hair accessories, nuts, bots, clothes pins. “Make 3 groups. Now get out your detective magnifying glass. One person from each group takes magnifying glass (from dollar store) and tries to figure out the attributes.

Troll Bridge:
The goal is to cross the bridge without being captured by the troll. To do this, the participant must step on the only those shapes which meet the troll’s specified criteria, (small, red shapes, or octagons, or quadrilaterals.) Can step on 2 types of shapes. Kids can cut these out from colored paper and spread down the hall or in open space. The troll comes and gobbles up those who miss as all the children watch.

Group Body Patterns,
the students create a pattern using their bodies (sit stand squat) which meets a specified type of pattern ad ad abc abc abbc abbc Have each team come up with a pattern and the other teams must try to guess what type of pattern has been created.

Touch and Go
: This is a relay race incorporating teamwork. Counting patterns and sequencing. Large laminated number cards are placed on the walls of gym or multi-purpose room. Teams of 3 seem to work best for this. Each team is given a set amount of time to touch the proper numbers in the correct sequence. A player’s turn begins when he/she runs to touch the number and ends when they tag the hand of the text teammate witng their turn. “Count by 2’s up to 20. Ready set go.” Or count by 3’s or odd numbers or even. GO backwards by 1’s or 2’s.

Decision Dice
Need dice and chalkboard or blank decision dice place value (three squares per team) Group your students into a t least 3 teams. The object of the game is to create either the highest number or lowest number. Each team takes a turn rolling the dice an d placing that digit on one of the empty blacks found on the place value chart. When all the spaces are filled the teams must read their number correctly. The tam with the highest number earns a point and the team with the lowest number also earns a point. Continue for several rounds. Points cam be totaled though just one session or teams can accumulate points over the course of a month, semester or year.

Scramble/Cooperative Computation:
You will need to provide each group of student with a set of large number card with singe digit and commas. You need at least 2 groups/teams of students. The size of the group is dependent upon how large you want the number to be. Each team should have the same number cards. The teacher states a number and the first team to arrange themselves in the correct order gets a point. Attach the numbers on the students back works best. Students’ backs face the class.

Flip it
Speed agility and quick thinking skills. You need a stack of paper plates and room to move. Each paper plate should have an odd number written on one side and an even number on the other. Spread the plates out in a large area. Some of the plates should have odd numbers showing, others even. Player on the odd team try to turn the plates over so that odd number are showing while players on the even team are trying to the opposite.

Use composite/print
Simplest form fractions /equivalent fractions
Facts /opinion
anything

Sorting

Sort by patterns
Sort b meaning and use

Sorting can be better than worksheets. Use post it notes or 3/5 cards. Mix it up.

I saw lots of sorting using folders for papers. Kids like post it notes. You can store them in folders for the next time.

Students can write their voc. Words on post it notes and sort by all kinds of things. You can make them sort by an attribute or have them come up with own sort.

Hands on Math

Manipualtives are nothing new to most of us. We need to be having the kids use words to understand the manipulatives to explain to check for understanding to ensure the connections. Too often we move too soon to abstract. Too often kids memorize the procedure without knowing why. We need to incorporate more oral language into math. This guy said, “ Listen to your students. No matter how much you have to teach there should be a time in every lesson when you stoop teaching and let the students learn. They only lean through appropriate methods and through talking about what they have learned. Build time, no matter how short, into your lesson for talking about the math lesson. Mathematics is a language and needs to be discussed and it is a cumulative science. It is not pushing numbers around memorizing fact. It is problem solving, which involves communiction, and reasoning. Therefore, the teaching of mathematic need s to me multi-sensory so that stunts see, hear, do and talk about what they are learning.

We estimated how many were in the session. We took several estimates. Then we went around and explained our procedure. He said all estimates are right. Some are more efficient estimates. He went on to say, he hates to see teachers saying there is only one way to solve etc..
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Free handouts on study skills. This was interesting:

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Free article:
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Homework/headache article send email to:
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Over and over I heard that early intervention is KEY and long lasting. Small groups and pull outs work. Intensive intervention makes a difference. In fact, they reduces reading problems down to less than 1% in one study by Torgeson. AMAZING.
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There are lots of new programs that looked very promising. Several of them are very much like Phono-graphix which I use including Reading Foundations, IROC, and Sound Reading Solutions. I took a look at Project Read and loved what I saw there.

This is brief summary. I am not doing it justice believe me.
Lots of new research out there. One study found that teachers who think they knew a lot about reading didn’t necessarily know what they thought they knew. Those who thought they knew a lot on children’s literature in fact did know about children’s literature. But when they said they understood phonemic awareness, in fact they didn’t even know how to do it correctly so how could they teach it too kids. That was SCARY. Years of experience was not a factor which they thought it might be.

The researcher explained how these teachers would not be open to professional development

Another study studied 1000 teachers. They wrote out their 2-hour reading/language block. Those who favored phonics had a larger phonics time slot and took incrementally from about the other major 13 categories. Those who favored children’s literature took the time out of phonics instruction down to practically nothing. They did not take it evenly as the phonics heavy teachers did but just didn’t teach phonics or very little. Teacher’s knowledge of subject area did not influence how much time they spend on choices of activities.

Another study of 17 California Learning Intuitions found that these institutions did not follow the California Frameworks. The time teachers should be getting all the skills would make sense while they have time in college before they have to miss school and get substitutes etc… These teachers go through programs and do still not know the elements of this framework are. The presenter was alarmed. She said we have to retrain new graduates. It would make sense to give teachers training in college. But we wait till they graduate and then spend more money training them for 2 weeks during school or in addition to contracts. WHY?????????? We need to better prepare teachers and do it right in the first place. .

My favorite presentation was Christopher Woodin from Landmark School in Manchester, MA. I ended up eating lunch with a gal from Arizona (of all places) who has had this man come to her district for in-service. He had some GREAT ideas on teaching addition, which made so much sense. Tons of teachers ran up to him after his presentation all asking questions and were as intrigued as I was. It is hard to condense but he uses dots but not like touch math. You make these manipulatives with plastic overheads with dice type patterns. Instead of number lines, which don’t work as well, he uses patterns that can build to make dice like patterns. Anyway, I heard from the lady who I ate lunch with that he has a book out that is good. I just emailed him. If it is any good I’ll post, if the book goes into this level. I can’t really explain easily but there were lots of teachers who were amazed by his presentation including me. He then showed how to link hands to make a ten and then use the left over fingers with dots. It was great for learning missing addends to 10. He said he doesn’t like number lines. He asked us what letters went from F to L in the alphabet backwards. Going backwards in the middle is hard. But with his technique, kids could see visual representations. He lined up a group of 10 dots and then dots in patterns like dice. He flashed them fast. The patterns were easier for us. The clear plastic manipulatives were placed over to build dice like patterns. It was very cool and I’m not doing a good job of explaining it. If anyone is interested they can let me know and I can fax them the handout.

See it
Touch it
Hear it
Move it
Write it
Learn if Recall it.

Make some school experiences multi-sensory but make sure it is systematic, structured, sequential, and cumulative. This workshop was page after page of ideas. It can’t just be fun without a purpose. Tie it to learning of course.

As you read stories with or to kids draw little pictures, easy pictures. This is HUGE. I knew it was important but after this workshop, I promised myself I’d do more and have the kids do it too. You can do it on the dry erase board but also on the mini dry erase boards.

Try different kinds of pens, paper, cards, markers etc. You can get the roll paper from our supplies free so I plan to do this with kids.

Draw quick pictures for voc. Cards.

Tell a story (lr make t a song)
Episodic memory is powerful.
Color code things. Use highlighters for finding capitals and punctuation.

Koosh ball toss to answer voc. Math facts, or quick facts

Post it paragraphs making colorful movable outlines. You have magnetic colored sentence trips, index cards, highlighter. It becomes a movable graphic organizer.

On of my favorite ideas:

Take a HOT WHEELS orange strip and use it like a sentence strip. Use an erasable marker to write words in chunks. Have the student come up and move the car as he reads the chunk. I guess this is a big hit. I might have to check ebay for hot wheels tracks. I can see this would be good for kids at a young age.

Another great idea:

Freeze Frame:
Any content area for review:
Place students into groups. Teacher says, “ You are (a) ______________Pause and then say ‘GO” 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2, 1 FREEZE FRAME. When the teacher yells Freeze Frame, all movement must stop. The teacher then evaluates which team has the most accurate or creative picture of the specified item. There are 2 major rules to this activity. Rule one is that no one may speak until the teacher says “GO”. Rule 2 is that when the teacher yells FREEXE FRAME, no one is allowed to move. If either rule is broken, the team will be out for that round.

Place students in groups of 3 or 4.
“You are the prime meridian…GO

You are a pentagon “go”

Or larger groups, you are a scene in the story.

Literature:
Show the time when Wilbur fist meets charlotte….GO

You are the Mississippi river, Go

Make a picture of Robert E. Less signing the cease-fire at Appomattox, Go.=======================================================

Prepositions Everywhere:
When first teaching propositions, gather the class and tell them they are going on a preposition tour around the school. Each member of the class takes turns at directing the class’s movements by coming up with a prepositional phrase telling the class where to go next. The class them moves to the exact spot. When the students mess up and say In the instead of On the, the group must try to do exactly what is said. The leader will need to ‘fix’it. Each student must use a different preposition.
1. by the door
2. next to the water fountain
3. under the basket
4. on the playground
5. around the field
6. up the hill
7. between the trees,
8. etc.

What will be next: use picture and write phrases
Highlight prepositional phrases in sentences
Write sentence from picture prompts. Be specific with instruction on which prepositional phrase. Where, how and when questions words are a great way to do this activity. Write a sentence with 2 prepositional phrases answering eh question where..or with one…how and a when.
Final step will be the transition to the traditional parentheses place of the colors.

TRUE /FALSE TAG
two tams face each other. One team becomes the chasers if the answer to a question is true and tithe other team becomes the chasers if the answer is false. Those being chased have to reach the base at the end of the room before being tagged. Works will fro the recall of short information.

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There were some very fun games at www.frog.com. These games are great for review. They have game packs to send home instead of worksheets for homework. Great for kids who are working on the same skill OR different skill. You could have each kid using a different stack of types of math, reading , or language questions. Great for IEPS kids. Not cheap. Great for tutoring after school programs. I played the sample game with my 7 year old. She loved it. You can make your own version but it is easier to pay for it done. The back of the cards have the answers and number of spaces to move. The parent version has 24 weeks of different games. Great for Family Math night to introduce there.
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Something simple but useful.
Every kid has a stack of 3/5 index cards with things such as WHO WHAT WHEN WHERE WHY and more later.. They line these cards up on desk. They move the cards to the other side as they tell a partner each part of the story. So simple but for some reason this is easier then a work sheet. The lady had a string in her hand. As she told the story the line was straight. With the rising action, she tied the string. It got tighter at the climax and then she untied it at the denouement and resolution. Simple visual but it worked and we thought kids could relate. String is cheap.

This lady again stressed drawing little simple pictures as you go. This works great for story retell she said. She went on to talk of guided metacognition levels from
Activate
Web
Read
Sum up
Write
Question
Extend

Card Pyramid
1. give students a tree to four paragraph passage
2. students read the passage
3. give students nine index cards
4. students write the maid idea in a few words on one card, Thy place the card at the top of their desks
5. Students find 3 to 4 words that support the main idea. They write each word on the separate card. They lay these cards in a second row under the first card
6. Students find details about the sporting ideas. They write these details on separate cards. They lay these cards in a direct row under the supporting ideas.
7. Student discusses progression of ideas.

I won some game called Turn the Tables for math multiplication that is very multi-sensory. www.turnthetables.net

Looks interesting.

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Then of course Steve Truch out of Canada discussed his study on Phono-graphix and Lips which showed that these programs work. He will send me his study via email soon. Very good information as I use Phono-graphix. He has developed his own program now which is similar but alas it has fluency and comprehension. Looks professional too. I had a glass of wine with him along with a bunch of other Phono-graphix people I met up with. www.readingfoundation.com

I saw two other programs like Phono-graphix but with better packaging. They wanted you to get trained though.

Another cute idea for a class of ADHD kids. Instead of worksheets have them put things together by writing on a ping pong balls using straws on the floor. Kids can blow balls like 6 x 8 = 48 using a straw to blow it in the right order. OR, put together sentences this way. Have the punctuation on a separate ball. Adapt to anything.

There was tons more. I loved hearing about all the new things. I can’t even begin to type all I learned. I feel there are so many things out there that can increase reading and decrease student reading failure. We have the tools. The hardest part is getting teachers to actually change. We have a long way to go, but so much is possible regardless of poverty and race if we open our eyes and JUST DO IT.

There were lots of fancy programs with big price tags. There is some very cool techno stuff but out of my budget and probably yours.

The one theme I can say I got is people who are RELENTLESS can make big things happen. Relentless parents, relentless teachers, and relentless administrators can make a huge difference. Even just one teacher can change a child for life. Remediation sooner vs. later is key. The effects of intervention can have a huge impact. We have the know how, but need to apply it and not make excuses. We need to find ways to make kids succeed. They almost always can if given proper instruction. Easier said then done but people are doing it in all kinds of places and that is very encouraging to me.

Hope this has been helpful. I wish I could summarize the research I learned. If I can get my hands on a link, I’ll post.

Michelle AZ