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Serving Middle and High School Students with Dyslexia in the Special Education Setting: MTSU Course

September 21, 2024 @ 9:00 am - 12:00 pm

About This Series
Dyslexia is a Specific Learning Disability (SLD) in Basic Reading Skills and/or Reading Fluency. Students with an SLD in Reading Comprehension may also have word-level weaknesses contributing to their reading difficulty. In addition, students with dyslexia often have difficulties with written expression. As a special educator, you are likely sought out as a source of knowledge about dyslexia. Your colleagues rely on you for guidance on how to provide intensive intervention and supports for students with characteristics of dyslexia, based on student need.

This professional learning series builds both knowledge and practical skills for those who teach middle and high school students with intensive literacy needs. Participants will be enrolled in Blackboard Ultra, our online learning management system (LMS), which provides access to short, pre-recorded videos and readings. This online content provides important background knowledge that will prepare participants for monthly in-person meetings on campus. Building this foundational knowledge prior to each in-person session enables the instructors to use class time to dive into case studies and teaching strategies.*

You will learn how to provide multi-component literacy intervention for middle and high school students. Instructional resources and tools derived from evidence-based practices will be shared and modeled. These can be used to supplement and/or bolster your existing reading intervention program.

Classes meet at MTSU one Saturday per month from 9:00 am – 12:00 pm Central.
Each session has a distinct yet interconnected focus. Below are the date and a brief description of each session:

September 21, 2024: Dyslexia as a Learning Disability
Various terms are used to describe reading and writing difficulties, and this can cause confusion for parents and educators. In this session, we will discuss terms like dyslexia and characteristics of dyslexia and their relationship to specific learning disabilities. You will also learn about conditions that can co-occur with learning disabilities. Using assessment data to determine literacy strengths and needs will be discussed, with a focus on identifying instructional targets. You will examine case studies and practice using data to inform your instructional decision-making.

October 19, 2024: Improving Multisyllable Word Reading Using Authentic Texts
Build your knowledge about how the increasing complexity and integration of phonemes, graphemes, syllables, and morphemes impact reading and writing development. You will learn the essential sub-skills students need to decode long words. You will also learn an explicit routine to support your students with multisyllable word reading, as well as a variety of ways to provide the practice needed to become accurate and automatic with word reading. When your students’ word level reading becomes automatic, they can focus on text comprehension. Strategies will be modeled and practiced using authentic, grade-level vocabulary and text.

November 23, 2024: Spelling Multisyllable Words
You will continue to build and apply your knowledge about syllable patterns (including unstressed syllables and their unique challenges for spelling), as well as high-utility spelling rules and vocabulary knowledge as contributors to accurate spelling. You will learn how to teach students to spell multisyllable words while integrating scaffolds that strengthen weak foundational subskills, such as phonemic awareness, phonics, syllabication, and morphology.

December 14, 2024: Text Reading Fluency in Support of Comprehension
The goal of fluency instruction is to strengthen your students’ comprehension. You will learn how to plan purposeful repeated reading activities that use academic text while integrating word reading practice, vocabulary knowledge, and text comprehension. We’ll examine how practicing with a wide variety of text types (e.g., topics, vocabulary, syntax) can improve reading fluency.

January 25, 2025: Improving Reading Comprehension: Vocabulary and Academic Knowledge
Students with dyslexia have a primary weakness with skills related to word reading and spelling. Accurate and automatic word reading is necessary for text comprehension, so many students who have been identified with a deficit in basic reading or reading fluency also need support with reading comprehension. A multicomponent approach to reading intervention is emphasized in this session. Instruction that supports the development of oral language comprehension, vocabulary development, self-monitoring, and reading comprehension will be detailed.

February 22, 2025: Written Expression
Written expression relies on a complex interconnection of literacy and cognitive planning skills. Many students with dyslexia have trouble with writing. This session will focus on sentence-level intervention, featuring evidence-based strategies such as sentence combining, sentence structures, semantic features, and self-regulation skills. Proficient reading and writing rely on overlapping skills, so a multicomponent approach that includes written expression can enhance both areas of literacy.
This series is geared toward special educators in the middle and high school setting. Interventionists, administrators, school psychologists, speech language pathologists, and other educators who work with intensive reading intervention are encouraged to attend, as well!

*Note: Each participant must complete a brief knowledge check after engaging with the online material. An hour of attendance will be certified for each online session, based on the engagement analytics provided by the LMS. You must attend the in-person session for each date in order to benefit from application of the information and to earn a certificate of attendance.

To learn more, visit https://dyslexia.mtsu.edu/dyslexiasuccessseries/

Details

Date:
September 21, 2024
Time:
9:00 am - 12:00 pm
Website:
https://dyslexia.mtsu.edu/dyslexiasuccessseries/

Venue

MTSU
Murfreesboro, TN United States + Google Map
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