News and reflections from experts and practitioners on the latest literacy research, events and daily practice
Welcome to Learning Ally's blog. You've come to the right place if you are an innovative teacher who wants to transform more struggling readers into grade-level achievers.
July 10, 2023 by User
Members of the Learning Ally community may already be familiar with The Reading Rope. Grounded in the Science of Reading, the reading rope is an analogy which depicts successful literacy as a braided combination of many sub-skills. “When we break this down, we have to teach kids to decode. We have to teach kids vocabulary. We have to teach kids about syntax and sentence sense…So there's a lot of essential skill building” says Laura Stewart, Chief Academic Officer at 95 Percent Group.
Of the many skills which are woven into the rope, Stewart is raising awareness of one which is especially overlooked: Syntax. In language, syntax is the study of how words can be ordered and arranged in sentences to create meaning. Stewart posits that many students who struggle with comprehension may be getting stuck at this sentence level. “Less fluent readers may not have the stamina to hold sentences in [their] working memory until a meaning is extracted,” she explains. Luckily, Stewart met with the Learning Ally community to share 7 strategies for improving sentence comprehension through direct instruction.
1. Use “Teacher Talk” to Solidify Understanding. One of Stewart's first and easiest recommendations is to familiarize kids with the concept of complete sentences. “I might tell the children that a sentence tells us about someone or something. A sentence tells us what someone is doing or what something looks like” She says. Because sentences can carry many meanings and take on many forms, it’s important to start young students with a simplified frame of reference. “We're not really defining it. We're kind of modeling it for them… I've often heard teachers describe sentences to kids by saying a sentence has a who and a do”.
2. Make a Game of Counting Sentences. After students grasp a theoretical understanding of sentences, it's time to put that knowledge into practice. Teachers should read out loud slowly to their students, pausing after each sentence to mark another tally or raise another finger. “What we're doing is reminding children to listen for a complete idea,” she explains. “This is a great way for students to develop sentence prosody, because sentences do have a certain rhythm”.
3. Ask Students “What’s Missing?” This strategy is another great way to train students to listen for sentence completeness. Stewart recommends starting orally by presenting students with a sentence fragment, either a subject or a predicate. Then, ask the students to answer “What’s Missing?”. By giving a non-example, teachers can further model what is, and what is not, a complete sentence. This works well for younger students who will struggle with more abstract explanations.
Stewart adds that “[these] strategies are simply something that we can do throughout the day…. We don't have to actually make this part of our ELA block… This is just something that we can tune our own teacher antenna to and make this part of our teacher talk”. In contrast, these next four steps are a bit more hands on, and will be more appropriate for older students.
4. Have Students Arrange Sentence Anagrams. Similar to a traditional anagram, which is a word formed by rearranging letters, Stewart’s “Sentence Anagrams” are formed by rearranging fragments. This activity works well when paired with a text read together in class. In this activity, teachers should ask students a question about information learned in the text. Students are then provided with the answer in the form of a dis-organized sentence–or un-scaffolded elements. The objective is for students to properly arrange the sentence elements to form a complete answer. “One of the most effective ways is to actually use sentence cards,” she says, which allows students to easily visualize the way words are ordered to create meaning.
5. Don’t Shy Away from Parts of Speech. “One question I quite often get is: do we teach parts of speech?” Stewart admits. Her answer is yes. “We really want to focus on this idea, that different words in a sentence serve different functions in that sentence”. While parts of speech and coding have historically been brushed aside, Stewart emphasizes that it is an important part of understanding syntax. Instruction about sentence coding can even pair nicely with Sentence Anagram activities. “[Teachers should] really focus on the mobility of the different parts of a sentence”.
Of course, literacy isn’t just about reading comprehension. As students get older, it’s important to connect their understanding of syntax with their writing skills. “I often see writing instruction that emphasizes whole compositions. And I think we're missing an important step,” she explains. “We need to teach kids to develop a well-constructed sentence. Because sentences are the bones of all writing”.
6. Challenge Students to Elaborate on Basic Sentences. According to Stewart, this is one of the trickiest strategies on her list. In this activity, students start with a simple sentence and expand it to “make it more meaningful and interesting”. Students can be guided through expansions by asking questions that align with each part of speech. For example, students can expand the predicate by asking “where?” and “when?”. They can go further by asking “to whom?” “for whom?” or “for what?”. They can also expand the subject by asking questions about traits. Traits can be physical or relational, and they can even describe ownership or amount. For example, “The boys ran.” can be expanded to “Yesterday, the three boys ran to get groceries”.
7. Explore Sentence Variety in Student Writing. The goal of this strategy is “to create more interesting compositions by focusing on sentence level… types of sentences, length of sentences, [and] beginnings of sentences” says Stewart. For older kids, this may involve formal instruction on sentence types like interrogative, declarative, imperative, and exclamatory. Older students can go through their work, labeling sentences to make sure they have one of each type. But younger students can also practice diversifying their sentences. “One way that we can teach our students about sentence variety is to have them just count the number of words in their sentences”. Another trick for younger students is to circle the first word of each sentence. Students should “try not to start two sentences with the same word”, says Stewart.
With these seven strategies, Stewart hopes that students of all ages can gain a better grasp of how sentences are created and understood. And with learning loss as a result of the pandemic, this instruction seems urgent. “We know that many of our students do not express themselves orally in complete sentences.” But by developing a general understanding of syntax, students can expect to see improvement in their writing and their reading comprehension. “Sometimes students make an error in decoding and if they have good syntactic awareness, they can repair that error spontaneously”.
Article by: Michael Manzi. Michael was a struggling reader. Now, he writes articles and blogs to promote research-backed literacy interventions for students across the education spectrum.
Categories: dyslexia, Education & Teaching, Professional Development, Reading Strategies for K-12, Student Centric Learning, Teacher Best Practices, The Digital Age, Whole Child Literacy
June 21, 2023 by User
For Immediate Release:
Announcing Learning Ally 2023 National Achievement Awards Winners
June 21, 2023 - Princeton, NJ – Learning Ally, a national nonprofit working with U.S. schools and districts to improve literacy for all students has announced the winners of its 2023 National Achievement Award, also known as the Winslow Coyne Reitnouer Excellence in Education Award.
The announcement took center stage at the organization’s Spotlight on Dyslexia – a two day virtual professional learning conference for educators. The Award recognizes innovative educators and schools driving new initiatives to improve reading outcomes, and is named for Winnie Reitnouer, a long-time supporter of Learning Ally and champion of literacy for students with reading challenges.
Winners receive monetary prizes and national recognition, and are chosen by a national selection committee. Notable achievements include building new reservoirs of knowledge about the science of reading; applying evidence-based reading practices to enhance class instruction; encouraging literacy leadership among colleagues, and expansion of accessible content to create equitable learning experiences.
This year’s winners are:
Wanda Anderson, Arlington, VA. A certified Reading Specialist and Wilson Dyslexia Practitioner who has more than 30 years of teaching experience in rural, urban and suburban schools and organizations.
Tina Herbst, Hillsborough County Public Schools, Plantation, FL. Supervisor of Instructional Support and Assessment in the Exceptional Student Education Department.
Leana Malinowski, Middlesex County, NJ. Early elementary teacher selected as the 2022-2023 Middlesex County Teacher of the Year and a State Teacher of the Year Finalist..
Andrea Spradling, Palm Beach FL. Faculty member of the American Heritage School of English who helped to launch and teach the first American Heritage School summer program for elementary students.
The Professional Development Team at St. Louis, MO Public Schools. Committed to building learning experiences and competencies that align to district, state, and national standards with the goal of deepening educators’ knowledge, through seminars, meetings, and work sessions to become literacy leaders.
Terrie Noland, V.P. of Educator Initiatives at Learning Ally said, “These extraordinary leaders are making powerful transformations in literacy education. They are on the leading edge of growing their professional knowledge on brain-based teaching so that all students, especially those with learning and print disabilities, receive every opportunity to reach their full potential.”
About Spotlight on Dyslexia
Spotlight on Dyslexia is held annually for educators of all roles. Leading literacy experts share proven strategies, interventions, and accommodations to build out teaching capacity and support for students with dyslexia. To learn about the power of literacy instruction using the latest research of how the brain learns to read, archived sessions are available until December 31, 2023 for up to 30 continuing education certificates.
For information about the National Achievement Award, or Spotlight on Dyslexia, visit www.learningally.org or call 800-221-1098.
About Learning Ally
Learning Ally is a leading education nonprofit dedicated to empowering educators with proven solutions that help new and struggling learners reach their potential. Our range of literacy-focused offerings for students in Pre-K to 12th grade and catalog of professional learning allows us to support more than 2 million students and 445,000 educators across the United States.
Categories: Awards, Education & Teaching, Educators, In the news, Press Releases
June 8, 2023 by User
Struggling readers are a challenge for every educator. How do you identify each child’s reading struggles? Do they need vocabulary building? Do they comprehend what they read? Do they struggle to decode words, a signal they may have a learning disability like dyslexia? Are they demonstrating behavioral problems? How do we effectively identify the characteristics of dyslexia based on screening school age children?
Helping educators support children with reading barriers is a specialty of Dr. Tim Odegard, Professor of Psychology at Middle Tennessee State University. Dr. Odegard also leads the efforts of the Tennessee Center for the Study and Treatment of Dyslexia. Here is a recap of his discussion at last year's 2022 Spotlight on Dyslexia conference.
Reading is Language – Dyslexia is a Written Language Issue
“I'd like to start by highlighting that reading is language and dyslexia is a written language issue,” says Dr. Odegard. "Reading is the interaction between attentional systems in our brain. In our lives, we are immersed in oral language. It is the primary means of interacting with others. We are born with language processing centers for oral language systems that enable us to learn automatically, as well as process visually. Because of this, we have evolved highly integrated areas in our brains that form clusters of networks. This allows us to both express ourselves orally, as well as to receive and understand spoken language. The system that fires first is receptive. We're born into a world of sounds and pops of lights. We learn the statistical structure through exposure of verbal streams of auditory information that come into our ears and get processed. Those of us with dyslexia struggle to access written language. As an individual with this learning disability, I can tell you that life isn’t fair to insist that we must read, write and spell well automatically and effortlessly to be successful. It’s just not that way for dyslexics. Reading and writing are the modalities that we use to engage the world, and our society demands it of us. It is a non-negotiable expectation for all of us, but truly difficult for dyslexics.
We Must Be Taught to Read
Public education has the potential to be the great equalizer to establish equality and social justice for every child. Every child has the right to go to school and receive access to information in a modality that works for them. Yet, a stark reality is millions of children are struggling to read simple passages and answer questions about what they read. Children must be taught directly how to read and write words. We do not learn how to do these activities merely by being exposed to written language. Ideally, once we are exposed to reading and writing instruction, our brains should work in a direct and systematic way, but that does not just happen for dyslexics. Reading is not a default mode in our brains. Our ability to hear the internal structures of words and their sound is in response to our learning the alphabetic code of written language. If we are not taught these skill sets, we do not learn how to read. Language development and written language development are symbiotic and relational. They feed off one another.
Characteristics of Dyslexia
The goal of reading is to have strong oral language development and print skills. We must learn how to put words together to express ourselves. We must learn what the meaning units of words are. This is called morphology. We need vocabulary. We need reading comprehension, and we need background knowledge. Phonological awareness, phonological memory, rapid naming, these skills are all associated with, and predictive of, individuals with dyslexia.
In your classes, you will have strong readers and poor readers. Dyslexia lies on a continuum of severity. To identify students with dyslexia, look for inaccurate or non-fluent word recognition. The child who fits the characteristics of dyslexia doesn’t decode words or spell well, is inaccurate and less efficient in word reading and decoding abilities, and does not read fluently. They have phonological processing deficits, lack sound symbol correspondence knowledge, and automaticity when reading. They may be persistently slow in their rate of response to instruction. There may be a genetic predisposition as well. Some people are pre-wired to struggle.
Behavioral Profile and Social Determinants
There are also social determinants to brain development caused by environmental factors. The World Health Organization defines social determinants of health as the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, learn, work, and age. How can you begin to mitigate this? We should look for skills, behavior, and social determinants in struggling readers, and implement early identification and intensive and sustained instruction and remediation processes. In Kindergarten, you are identifying print-focused risk in emergent literacy skills.
Specify how screening for dyslexia relates to universal screening as part of RTI and MTSS, as well as eligibility testing for learning disabilities under IDEA. Get it out in the open, talk about it, hash it out, figure out what works. Measures should be quick and easy to administer with accuracy and pre-literacy constructs. Undertake an audit to find gaps in your existing practices, materials, and personnel to screen for dyslexia. Develop a plan to address the gaps. Perform ongoing assessments. Record the data, aggregate the data, make the data usable and useful at the systems level and at the student level.
There are forty-nine U.S. states that have dyslexia laws on the books and most call for universal screening to determine if a student is at risk for reading failure or not meeting grade level expectations. Yet analysis of public data in states that require reporting on identification of students with dyslexia in public schools suggests that educators are under-identifying dyslexia.
These recommendations can be carried out at multiple levels of an educational ecosystem, and at the state department of education, district level, building level, and classroom level. You can learn more and download helpful resources and recommendations from our Tennessee Center for the Study and Treatment of Dyslexia site."
Learning Ally’s Professional Learning Services are designed to strengthen educator’s instructional capacity so they can deliver a deeper, richer learning experience and promote better academic outcomes.
About Tim Odegard
Tim Odegard, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology and holds the Katherine Davis Murfree Chair of Excellence in Dyslexic Studies at Middle Tennessee State University. He also leads the efforts of the Tennessee Center for the Study and Treatment of Dyslexia. He also serves as Editor-in-Chief of Annals of Dyslexia. Before joining the faculty at MTSU, Tim served on the faculty at the University of Texas Arlington and UT Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. In addition to being a research scientist, Tim is a reading therapist, having completed a two-year dyslexia specialist training program at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Dallas during his NIH-funded postdoctoral fellowship.
Categories: dyslexia, Early Literacy, Education & Teaching, Educators, Learning Disabilities, Reading Strategies for K-12, Student Centric Learning, Teacher Best Practices, The Digital Age, Whole Child Literacy
May 2, 2023 by User
May 2, 2023 - Princeton, NJ – Registration is now open for the eighth Spotlight on Dyslexia professional learning event designed for educators who teach and support children and adolescents with learning differences. Learning Ally, a national nonprofit working with U.S. schools to improve reading outcomes and equitable access to grade-level books, will host the two-day virtual event on June 7 and 8, 2023.
Dr. Terrie Noland, V.P. of Educator Initiatives for Learning Ally, says, “Every Spotlight on Dyslexia is unique in its ability to bring world-class speakers, researchers, and thought leaders together from cross-functional fields of literacy. These experts focus on evidence-based reading instruction proven effective for all students, and especially critical for students with learning disabilities. Whether you are a new teacher, a seasoned administrator, or parent looking for a solution for your child, this event will strengthen your knowledge and understanding of how to best support dyslexic learners, and will offer many actionable takeaways.”
Dyslexia is a neurologically-based learning disability marked by difficulties with decoding and reading comprehension. An estimated 1 in 5 Americans have dyslexia, representing as much as 90% of all people with learning disabilities according to the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity.
This year’s Spotlight on Dyslexia theme, “Believe, Build and Bolster,” will empower educators to believe in themselves, build new knowledge and teaching capacity, and bolster classroom instruction. The event promises to deliver proven strategies, interventions, and accommodations to transform reading outcomes, and to continue the important dialogue about dyslexia in Learning Ally’s community forums.
Two impressive keynote speakers will kick off this year’s sessions:
Educators can earn up to 30 continuing education certificates for learning about the power of literacy instruction using the latest research of how the brain learns to read. A dyslexia simulation will demonstrate firsthand the frustration children face when learning how to read, and when attempting to comprehend complex texts as a dyslexic learner.
Prior to the event, attendees can listen to pre-recorded 20-minute EdTalk sessions to gain background knowledge on various topics, including early literacy and the essential fundamental reading skills that children must be taught to master reading success.
Register now for the 2023 Spotlight on Dyslexia.
www.learningally.org/educators. 800-221-1098.
Categories: dyslexia, Early Literacy, Education & Teaching, Educators, Learning Disabilities, Press Releases, Professional Development, Reading Strategies for K-12, Student Centric Learning, Teacher Best Practices, Whole Child Literacy
April 18, 2023 by User
The U.S. Office of Educational Technology recently published a letter to States and districts with guidelines for how schools can leverage federal COVID relief funds to benefit teaching and learning with technology. Among the priorities was expanding access to quality professional development programs.
States and districts may use Title II, Part A funds to provide digital learning opportunities for improving their instruction and teaching practices and demonstrating proficiency in using technology for student learning. Funds may also be used to provide supplemental professional development for teachers, principals and school leaders to deepen their knowledge and instruction in teaching disadvantaged children, students with disabilities, and learners of the English language.
Dynamic Professional Learning Courseware
Learning Ally works with schools and districts to map an effective learning pathway to literacy to support students with reading deficits and close the equity gap. Our professional learning courseware and Spotlight Learning Series are designed to be scalable, impactful and sustainable and focus on the customization of literacy instruction with an emphasis on the curriculum and teaching approaches that are grounded in the science of reading (the body of research on how the brain learns to read).
In Learning Ally’s dynamic, interactive platform, educators work with Master Teachers in comprehensive workshops and in micro-learning activities that are experiential and exploratory. The programming is built upon the best practices for adult learning, such as a review of content to support specific instructional strategies; active learning so educators can direct themselves, use prior experience, solve real-world problems, and apply new knowledge to instruction; work-embedded collaboration and modeling best practices to develop peer observation strategies and share collective intelligence; coaching and support to create ongoing observation, feedback, reflection, and improved practice; and communities of practice.
Professional Learning in Brain-Based Instructional Courseware
Learning Ally’s PreK-6 Effective Brain-Based Literacy Instruction courseware trains educators about the science of reading, and how to recognize how each child learns to read. The award-winning brain-based courseware (a hybrid of online live and on-demand training) is flexible and adaptive, offering educators workshops and collaborative communities of practice with opportunities to refine and apply new knowledge directly into class and school environments. Educators work with Master Teachers to learn the latest research on how the brain learns to read, so they can individualize instruction and enhance their instructional capacity.
Educators will acquire in-depth knowledge on these topics:
Conceptual Underpinnings - Simple View of Reading and Scarborough’s Reading Rope
Phonemic Awareness - phonics, word study, decoding and encoding
Language Comprehension - vocabulary, background knowledge, verbal reasoning, and more
Complexities of Comprehension - connection between comprehension, motivation and strategy instruction
Specific practices tied to data on student achievement with measurable outcomes
Teaching multi-language learners
Powerful Solution to Teacher Retention and Student Outcomes
Studies show that a combination of online professional learning workshops and collaborative communities of practice with coaching are essential to improve instructional delivery and teacher retention, and are 20% more likely to increase student achievement.
Map an effective pathway to your school or district’s professional learning. Request a catalog of Learning Ally’s Professional Learning on-demand and virtual programming.
Brent Hartsell, Director of Solutions and Professional Learning, wrote this article, “Professional Learning: A Powerful Solution to Teacher Retention & Student Outcomes,” for the American Consortium of Equity in Education, to encourage more professional development for teachers and empathy for the ongoing challenges they face.
Hartsell states, “The role of a literacy leader is to build the vision, support the vision, and ensure implementation is attainable. When effective professional learning is offered to teachers in the science of reading and brain-based instruction, there are considerable gains to be made — from skilled teachers who feel knowledgeable and respected, to enhanced job satisfaction. Effective reading instruction and remediation will enable more students to flourish, especially neuro-diverse learners. We want to lift teachers up, and encourage professional learning. This will result in more teachers becoming highly-skilled professional literacy leaders, and more struggling readers becoming highly-effective academic achievers.”
Additional Information: Studies on Effective Teacher Professional Development Programming
Valerie Chernek writes about educational best practices through the use of technology and the science of reading in support of teachers, children, and adolescents who struggle with learning differences.
Categories: Curriculum & Access, dyslexia, Early Literacy, Education & Teaching, Educator Community, Learning Disabilities, Professional Development, Student Centric Learning, Whole Child Literacy
Join our community and get the latest sent right to your inbox! Stay up to date on the latest news, research, and practical guidance.