Reflection 
                                                
   Time to take a  look back on my week.  

Last night a new acquaintance asked me about my work. I heard myself enthusiastically respond  how much I love my work, because I get to teach children how to read.  I went on to share that sometimes I see the magic of the moment when a student suddenly realizes they can read. Other times it does not happen this way,  it is a longer and more gradual process.  This week I was blessed. I watched two students become readers. Two. Granted, they were reading last week and the week before that. However, they did not quite believe it yet. And now they do. Will they have to continue to work hard, harder than their non-dyslexic peers? Yes, of course. But now they believe they are readers. And their parents saw it too. I emailed the parents of both students and they both responded that they had seen the same thing, they were interested in reading at home. It was a good week. 

Another Great Resource

Last year I had the absolute pleasure of attending a workshop by Dr. Christopher Kaufman. He had such an engaging way of simplifying how the brain works. I left the workshop feeling very empowered and humbled because he reminded me that I get to help change my student's brains. Think about that!

Parents and teachers, if you ever get a chance to go to one of his conferences, I would highly recommend it. In the meantime, I found a way you can watch it from your comfy couch.  His entire presentation is available on Reading Matter to Maine website at the following link: http://readingmatterstomaine.org

Let the Games Begin!

http://www.sightwords.com/sight-words/games/dominoes

Another year begins! This year I will not only be teaching full time, but I am also a "scholar" training for my Orton Gillingham certification.  In the few minutes I had before it was time to call it a night, I decided to search for some quick games to practice word reading fluency for my OG tutoring session tomorrow.  I was delighted when I came across this wonderful website. This is a wonderful site for both teachers and parents. You can choose from sight word lists or you can customize your own lists. I can't wait to customize some games for the specific needs of my students both phonetically correct words and sight words. Check it out!

Great information about phonemic awareness and the importance of teaching sounds correctly.

Upcycle

 I find great pleasure in taking old windows that are going to be discarded and upcycling them into mirrors or mosaic windows.

Teachers have always been fantastic at "up cycling". Tiny budgets and shortages of time make it a necessity.  We are constantly taking ideas, strategies and materials, and turning them into something useful for our students.

Students, and sometimes myself, tire of the traditional flash card practice. Here are a few of my favorite upcyled ideas to use with students for drill and practice work. These ideas work well in small group instruction.


1. Hide and Seek  My students always love this one and will request it daily. It is a win-win situation. They are racing around having a blast while practicing our target skill as quickly as possible. I hide the flashcards around the classroom as an opening activity. They find one card at a time and race back to me to. Sometimes they just simply read the word or name the sound. Other times I challenge them with an additional question (such as name a word that ends with the sound, name a rhyming word, segment the word, etc...)

2. Lay Them Straight  One of my issues with traditional flash card drills (teacher holds up card and student responds) is we don't read that way. This process does not increase a student's ability to read right to left with one to one matching. Why not lay a row of 5-6 cards in front of the student? What I love about this is that all the students in the group will have a row of words to practice while their classmates read their row. Sometimes I have the students stand up and travel around the table reading each row or ask them a challenging question as suggested above.

3. Go Fish  Often on Fridays (or sub days) we play card games with our target skills. Go Fish is  a favorite!

4. Memory/Concentration  To make this game a bit easier for my younger students or those with memory difficulties, I put a piece of masking tape down the middle of the table. I put one set of cards on each side, therefore they know they have to pick one card from each side to find the match.

5. Tic Tac Toe  Instead of writing an X or an O, students write a letter or a word that they are practicing.

6. Bingo Students can make their own Bingo boards. Dictate sounds or words that you are practicing and have your students write in the squares of folded paper or laminated blank Bingo boards. Then play a quick round of Bingo.


I hope you try out some of my upcyled strategies. Let me know how they worked. Parents, these would be great fun at home, too.

In Search of Praise

When I began this blog, my goal was to post reading strategies and snippets of students practicing these strategies. This has been more challenging than I thought.  Making and finding the time is my challenge.

Just like my students, I need to give myself some encouragement. "Great job getting started."

Here is another article from the website, Understood. Another one worth passing along. It just worked for me. I hope it works for you too

Praise

Stealth Dyslexia

Another great article shared with me that I am passing along. Yes, students that have trouble reading but they fly under the radar. Other times, teachers instantly know there is something not connecting for them. They search for support through special education testing and the results are inconclusive. Frustrating. Fortunately, I work with some fantastic teachers and we all work together to make sure the students get what they need, despite the label (or non-label).

https://www.understood.org/en/community-events/blogs/the-inside-track/2015/03/04/stealth-dyslexia-how-some-dyslexic-students-escape-detection?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=understoodorg

Dyslexia

Thanks to a parent and blog reader for sharing the following article with me.  The video embedded in the article is very interesting. Perhaps something that could be shared with a child with dyslexia to help them understand how their brain works.



 http://www.edutopia.org/blog/dyslexia-in-general-ed-classroom-kelli-sandman-hurley

Encoding

Connecting a specific sound to a specific letter is the first step of the process of  decoding. Encoding, on the other hand, is the reverse process, where students are asked to use the sound/symbol relationship of letters to form words. 


Encoding is a difficult task for many of my students.  Students need to be able to segment sounds, visualize a letter or letters to the sound they hear, and then write the letter they hear. Daily practice of this skill is necessary for mastery. 

Backstory of the video clip: The student in this clip is a 2nd grader. She has passed her 2nd grade reading benchmarks.  As the text becomes more complex, she has been successfully learning decoding strategies to break words into syllables. However, for all of her gains in decoding, she is challenged by the process on encoding.  

In this clip, you will see the student being introduced to the text using encoding strategies. Notice, the words chosen were phonetically correct given her level of skill. 


For more information on encoding and writing:

http://www.ldonline.org/article/5893/

Understood

          You may have already seen this commercial. I was hooked the first time I saw it. On snow day number two, I decided to take some time to check out the website and explore.  Parents, it is a very informative website with pertinent resources.         If you get a chance, check it out!

                                                       A formal introduction to the website.

                                                           https://www.understood.org

WELCOME!

                     Welcome to my blog.

 The purpose of this blog is to provide teachers and parents with reading strategies for children with learning disabilities.  

I believe reading acquisition is fundamental for healthy intellectual and emotional growth. Children with learning disabilities are at a greater risk to feel inadequate.  Let's work together so this won't happen.

Teaching reading to children with learning disabilities is challenging. Teachers have to be able to systematically modify, combine and refine methods. Their tool boxes need to include more specific targeted tools.

Each future post will include a quick strategy that I hope you find useful. I will keep the posts short and sweet. Additional resources will be provided  if you have time to do more exploring on the subject.  

Here is a video to remind us why we strive to do our very best for every student. None of us want this to happen to our students and no parent wants their child to feel this way.  This is why we work so hard (even on snow days).

                                     http://www.childrenofthecode.org/