Bruce Howlett, M.A. & Mimi Skerrett Williams, M.A.
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Videos
Sound Reading Solutions
Sound Reading Solutions is an educational publishing company that taps the expertise of over 20 speech pathologists, reading, ESL and special education teachers, and programmers who create highly effective, easy to use materials that have a measurable impact on the reading abilities of students. We provide advanced activity books, games, software and reading practice for literacy development, improvement and intervention meeting the needs of our diverse, multilingual population. We also offer Math Makes Sense! a series of six workbooks that provide foundational math instruction to students who struggle with math. The current suite of SRS products includes:- Hop, Skip and Jump into Reading for Beginning Readers
- Sound Reading for Primary Grades
- Sound Reading Improvement and Intervention System for Upper Elementary and Secondary Students
- Sound Reading System for ESL/ELL directed to second language learners
- Math Makes Sense!
1. The Fluency and Comprehension Connection (first grade through high school)
Lack of fluency is a major cause of comprehension problems. Many students reading at grade-level or above may not be reading deeply due to fluency issues. Extensive reading practice may not produce fluent readers. New methods, including word retrieval and rapid naming practice, timed-repeated reading, “too easy” reading and quick reads provide easy-to-teach methods. Don’t leave fluency practice to chance. Participants will see a demonstration of these methods and practice the methods using handouts.
Benefits:
- Understand the relationship between fluency and comprehension
- Learn practical methods for improving fluency
- Learn how lack of fluency is a major factor in reading motivation
- Discover that reading comprehension is dependent on listening comprehension
- Learn why listening skills are critical to higher-level comprehension strategies
- Improve reading scores on local and state assessments
- Update staff on latest fluency and comprehension research
- Provide easy-to-implement methods which systematically improve fluency
- Improve outcomes for students who read at grade level, yet under perform on standardized tests
- Substantially decrease the number of students who require remediation for reading difficulties
Almost all students with reading difficulties struggle with decoding. Phonics is essential but current research places it as a secondary line of defense in reading interventions. The first code to teach is the speech (phonological) code, using age-appropriate phonemic awareness and phonological processing techniques. The phonological code gives us access to meaningful spoken words, the end produce of reading. The relationship between spoken and printed words goes beyond knowing letters and sounds. Many students learn to read quickly using a print-to-speech method often called recoding. Recoding even helps students with limited phonics and because they learn the letter, sound and semantic relationships naturally. New, research-based methods quickly teach phonics, decoding and recoding while focusing on the problematic issues with English of similar sounding words and complex vowels. Learn to dramatically improve decoding instruction using easy-to-teach games and activity books. The workshop will include demonstrations of the methods and ready-to-use materials.
Benefits:
- Learn how to rapidly teach phonics, even to students who struggle with this basic skill after months of instruction
- Understand why learning the speech code is fundamental to learning the print code
- Develop age-appropriate phonemic awareness instruction that benefits upper elementary and secondary students
- Learn why it is easier to learn to read in first grade and why the more complex English read by older students requires specialized instruction
- Leave with a fresh perspective on reading difficulties and new methods to significantly improve reading skills
- Improve reading scores on local and state assessments
- Update staff on latest research regarding phonemic awareness, phonics and word reading
- Provide easy-to-implement methods to systematically improve fluency
- Improve outcomes of students who read at grade level, yet under perform on standardized tests
- Substantially decrease the number of students requiring remediation for reading difficulties
(upper elementary and secondary)
Reading is a special type of listening, or receptive, language task. We understand written language to the degree that we comprehend spoken language. Older students who struggle with reading need specific oral language instruction. Students who struggle while listening to oral reading (due to weak phonemic awareness or auditory discrimination, attention and memory difficulties) most often struggle to read. The brain’s language areas go through explosive growth from birth to age seven. Students who do not acquire receptive language skills in that time frame must learn them later on through explicit instruction. Receptive vocabulary, word retrieval and naming skills are essential for fluent reading. Reading comprehension is also largely based on receptive language comprehension. Students with weak listening skills often have difficulties applying higher-level comprehension skills and strategies. This presentation will show simple methods that strengthening listening and reading skills. Participants will see a demonstration of these methods and practice the methods using handouts.
Benefits:
- Learn why reading difficulties are rooted in oral language
- Understand the key processes that link written and spoken language
- Learn why phoneme discrimination, rapid naming and listening comprehension are so critical to reading
- Learn why it is easier to learn to read in first grade and why the more complex English older students must read requires specialized instruction
- Leave with a fresh perspective on reading difficulties and new methods to significantly improve reading skills
- Improve reading scores on local and state assessments
- Update staff on latest research regarding
- Provide easy-to-implement methods to systematically improve decoding, fluency and comprehension
- Improve outcomes of students that read at grade level, yet under perform on standardized tests
- Substantially decrease the number of students who require remediation for reading difficulties
Research has pointed to a wide range of methods that develop early literacy without resorting to drill and skill. Young children naturally develop oral language abilities at a rapid rate during their first few years of school. These are the exact capabilities that they need for learning how to read. Students who learn to read easily at this age have developed a set of oral language skills, including phonemic awareness and discrimination, auditory attention and memory and pattern recognition. These skill allow them to make the connections between spoken and written words naturally. Learn how to develop oral language skills through the use of activity books and games.
Benefits:
- Learn why kindergarten and first grade students are at a critical age for learning to read
- Learn the newest and easiest methods for developing phonemic awareness, phonics, word-level reading and fluency
- Develop new methods that strengthen language skills in students at risk for reading difficulties
- Learn the developmental sequence of activities that are critical for learning to read
- Learn why fluency is critical even in the primary grades and why students who aren’t fluent often avoid reading
- Provides an early literacy intervention plan that will decrease the number of students requiring remediation and special education support
- Update staff on latest research regarding phonemic awareness, phonics and word reading
- Provide easy-to-implement methods for teaching all students literacy
While states have pushed high-stakes reading assessment researchers have devised new ways of quickly determining a student’s reading abilities. Now it is easy to find out if a student is responding to your instruction (responsiveness to intervention) and to target specific areas of weaknesses. This presentation will demonstrate three-minute assessments for phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency and comprehension. Participants will learn how to easily monitor progress, as well as methods for quickly correcting reading difficulties. A handout including three-minute assessments of phonemic awareness, rapid naming, comprehension and fluency will be shown.
Benefits:
- Learn new ways of assessing phonemic awareness, comprehension and fluency
- Learn how, in five minutes a week, you can monitor your students’ progress and improve their reading
- Develop methods that limit basic skill instruction while increasing time in literature groups
- Learn why timed measures of comprehension are better indicators of reading progress
- Learn why rapid naming, an easy-to-measure test of reading speed, is an essential measure of fluency and reading motivation
- Learn how to significantly improve reading scores by tying assessment and instruction
- Develop methods for the early identification of students with reading problems, before they need extensive remediation
- Learn how to use quick assessments for developing brief, targeted instruction focused on specific reading difficulties
- Understand why progress monitoring is a key component in accountability
- Learn how to identify areas of weakness before students take standardized and high-stakes exams
To solve math problems, struggling students need both a deep understanding of the magic of numbers (number sense) and a good memory for facts and procedures. By tying together instruction in the meaningful aspects of math, concepts and strategies, with memory math, facts and procedures, students become solid problem solvers. Practice should be meaningful, emphasizing number sense and meaningful memorization over fact practice. Students must learn that each math operation incorporates many small skills and strategies. They need to have both verbal and visual instruction and practice at their independent instructional level. Participants will see a demonstration of these methods and receive hand-outs showing how addition and multiplication can be taught in a unified manner.
Benefits:
- Learn about new, research-based methods for tying the memory aspects of math (facts and procedures) to the meaningful aspects of math (concepts and strategies)
- Learn why math problem solving skills are dependent on both memory math and meaning math
- Identify the major roadblocks to learning math, including memory issues, math anxiety and avoidance behavior. Learn how to structure instruction to maximize student success
- See how visual representations are important for students who struggle with math
- Learn why meaningful practice at a student’s independent instructional level is critical for long-term success
- See demonstrations of powerful new methods that dramatically help struggling math students
- Improve math scores on local and state assessments
- Update staff on latest research regarding math instruction
- Provide easy-to-implement methods that every teacher should use
- Substantially decrease the number of students who require remediation for math difficulties
Reading Intervention for Post-Primary Students: Best Practices, Special Methods of Delivery and Implementation (.PDF)
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