ON TRACK FOR READING SUCCESS!-HANDS ON

Presenter(s)
Claire Kane
SEMERC
Quay Street
Manchester M60 9EA United Kingdom
Day Phone: +44 (0)161-827-2913
Fax: +44 (0)161-827-2966
Email: Claire.Kane@granadamedia.com

Word recognition skills alone are not enough to enable students to process all the new words they will meet in reading. When coming across an unknown word, students must call upon a variety of reading skills in harmony:  phonics (sound), graphic and word recognition (sight), syntax (grammatical knowledge), and semantic (contextual understanding). Come and experiment with a progressive research-based software series designed to break down the reading process into its essential building blocks. First we’ll develop pre-letter learning skills for students with specific difficulties in visual perception, segmenting, and blending. Then explore 45 isolated phonemes and try activities which help students learn to deal with the lack of one-to-one correspondence between sounds and symbols. Then we’ll place sounds within the meaningful context of a word, and word sets within the context of a sentence. Students will learn to track letters and words by selecting the proper item from the group, in the proper order. View support features for the dyslexic student, in and out of the inclusive classroom. We’ll discuss how to implement a comprehensive research based pre-reading program using the 5 programs from the On Track Series. Ongoing discussions will center on adapting each programs for use with students who have specific learning difficulties, and inclusion issues. Attendees get software giveaways, a subscription to www.elementaryzone.com, plus a comprehensive set of SEMERC handouts and research on Dyslexia and technology.