The audience will learn about characteristics of two approaches to decoding instruction for students with dyslexia: one teaches students technical terms and codes to help them learn the sound structure of the English language/the rules that govern English-language orthography; the other engages students in repeated exposure and practice and emphasizes application rather than verbalization of rules and/or technical terms. Presenters will review research on dyslexia instruction and discuss the evidence (or lack of evidence) suggesting that certain components or characteristics of instruction (e.g., multi-sensory activities, systematic introduction of grapheme-phoneme correspondences according to a predefined scope and sequence, explicit instruction, presence of technical terms and rules analysis) are effective "active ingredients" of word reading instruction for students with dyslexia.

Dr. Hall is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Children's Learning Institute at UTHealth. Her research focuses on the development and assessment of reading, with special emphasis on instruction for students with reading difficulties. She has played a primary role in the development and testing of various reading instructional interventions for elementary and middle school students. Dr. Hall is currently PI of an Institute of Education Sciences (IES)-funded development project that aims to revise and extend Reading RULES for Kindergarten (RRK), a small-group literacy intervention program aimed at improving kindergarten students' alphabet knowledge, phonics knowledge, word reading, spelling, vocabulary knowledge, text reading, handwriting, and composition skill. She is also working to develop and validate measures of reading and reading-related skills that are assessed through the Children's Learning Institute's CIRCLE Progress Monitoring System.