Dyslexia Instruction That Works

A diagnosis of dyslexia can bring with it a range of emotions. Some people are crushed, thinking that their, or their child’s, potential is irrevocably limited. Some are relieved: There’s something empowering about being able to name a condition and, of course, it’s validating to have a professional verify that the affected student isn’t “dumb” or “lazy.” But one of the most common reactions is confusion. Parents may feel overwhelmed and lost. Is there a way to teach literacy skills to a child with dyslexia that really works? If so, how does one find it?

We are happy to say that the answer to the first question is an emphatic “yes!” There are several thoroughly researched, time-tested instructional methods that can help students with dyslexia make sense of language. This instruction can occur in a variety of formats, but parents should always look these indicators of a highly-effective program:

• Curriculum is multi-sensory, explicit, and structured. Orton-Gillingham, and programs based on it, is the gold standard when it comes to instruction for students with dyslexia. There are lots of curricula (Wilson, Lindamood-Bell, Barton, etc.) that are O.G.-based, so don’t be thrown off by names. But research the curriculum to be sure it is grounded in this solid, well-researched approach.

• Curriculum includes training in phonemic awareness by itself. Phonemic awareness (skills needed to recognize and manipulate the sounds in language), is a key component of good early childhood instruction, but older students with dyslexia need this kind of instruction, too; their brains are less able to develop these skills simply from exposure to language. Recent research shows that phonemic awareness instruction should happen by itself, not in conjunction with written letters, to be most effective. In other words, both phonemic awareness (sounds) and phonics (sounds plus letters) should be part of instruction.

• Curriculum is administered by a certified reading or literacy specialist, or by an educator certified in an O.G.-based curriculum. No matter how talented, smart, or well-intentioned, standard classroom teachers and even special education teachers are not trained in the kind of reading instruction children with dyslexia need. (Trust me on this; I used to be one! It wasn’t until I obtained a masters degree in literacy, then was trained in Orton-Gillingham, that I was prepared to teach individuals with dyslexia.) 

• Other parents give the curriculum a thumbs-up. Ask to speak with parents of other children with dyslexia (not just struggling readers) who have received instruction from the provider you are considering.

So now that you know what to look for, how do you find it? That’s often a little more complicated. High-quality instruction for students with dyslexia can occur in a few different formats.

Services in Public School

Your child is entitled to a free, appropriate instruction from her school, often referred to by the acronym FAPE. This will probably take the form of pull-outs, meaning that a special education teacher or reading specialist will take your child out of her mainstream classes to work one-on-one or in a small group of similar students. Please note what we said above about the qualifications of your child’s instructor. If your district doesn’t provide a qualified reading specialist, you may need to do some research and be prepared to demand that your child receive instruction from someone who is properly trained; this should be set out in your child's IEP.  Most special education teachers are not trained in the specific reading instruction students with dyslexia need.

Dedicated Schools

Special schools for children with dyslexia are few and far between, but if you’re lucky enough to live near one or are flexible and up for a new adventure, this might be worth considering. (Some families even move to new cities in order to be near top-notch institutions!) The benefits of a quality school that is dedicated to dyslexia instruction are enormous. Not only are the teachers knowledgeable and experienced in reading instruction, but curriculum that benefits students with this profile is woven into every subject. Most schools also teach students how to self-advocate effectively and use helpful technology that can assist them in college and beyond. And, perhaps most importantly, students become friends with other bright, creative, dynamic, wonderful kids who share their struggles.

Private Instruction (e.g. Tutoring)

Sending your child with dyslexia to a special school isn’t feasible for lots of families for a variety of reasons. For kids who need help beyond what the special education services in their public school provide, private instruction is a great option. This usually occurs through two channels: established organizations or private practitioners.

Tutoring companies that specialize in reading disabilities, like Lindamood-Bell, can be good options for families. Look for an office that administers lots of benchmark assessments throughout instruction that clearly demonstrate that your child is making progress. Avoid tutoring companies that don’t specialize in reading disabilities; most of these organizations (Kumon, Sylvan, etc.) may provide great homework help for typically developing readers but don’t staff the specially trained teachers students with dyslexia must learn from.

Private practitioners vary enormously in training and quality. One surefire way to find a good one is to check out the International Dyslexia Association’s provider directory. Even if one of these professionals can’t take on another student, they may be able to point you in the direction of someone who can. Another suggestion is to speak with the administration at a school for students with dyslexia or students with language-based learning disabilities. The expert teachers who work at these schools often tutor on the side. If they don’t, chances are the principal knows someone who will.

A few words about scheduling, no matter where your child goes for private instruction:

• Set up at least two sessions a week initially. For younger children, shorter sessions (30-45 minutes) two or three times a week are better than an hour-long session once a week. Remember that your child will be working hard, and an hour in one go, even for older kids, may be too much at first.

• Your child will likely be worn out at the end of a school day, so morning sessions work better than after-school sessions for some families. 

• Some tutors will travel to your child’s school to work with him during instruction from which he gets little benefit, like spelling. While this can be an efficient use of time, some students feel self-conscious about being pulled out of class, making it hard for them to learn.

                                 

Summer Learning Opportunities

Summer slide, the tendency of kids to lose some of the skills they worked to gain during the school year, hits students with dyslexia particularly hard. It’s tempting to give kids a break for the summer, but they need at least some opportunities to keep their skills sharp to prevent frustration when school begins again. The summer months are a great opportunity for multiple weekly sessions at Lindamood-Bell or with a tutor. For older learners, excellent schools like Kildonan, the Landmark School, the Brehm School, and the Gow School offer residential summer camps that blend expert literacy instruction with opportunities to explore the arts, play sports, and have fun getting to know  peers with dyslexia.

Look for our post next week on high-tech tools to help learners with dyslexia (and adults!) with literacy demands.

How to Achieve Transfer

Transfer, the ability to apply learning to a novel situation, is a tricky thing. It’s not so hard for students to memorize, say, the definition of “subject” and “predicate” when working in a grammar textbook. Grammar exercises, however, are futile if students continue to produce incorrect sentences in their own writing because don’t know how to apply what they learned on a worksheet. Without being shown how to use new knowledge in other contexts, many students struggle to recognize how a concept can be applied to a slightly different problem or task. This is a very inefficient way to learn. Students who don’t understand how to transfer what they learn must memorize hundreds and hundreds of discrete skills rather than just a few core ones.

In response to the excellent publication from Deans for Impact, The Science of Learning, we have a few ideas about how to ensure that students can transfer what they’re learning to solve problems in all kinds of contexts.

Find Similarities Between Tasks that Appear Different on the Surface

In our own practice, we’ve observed that findings by Richland, Zur, and Holyoak (2007) hold true: students can transfer their knowledge and skills to new situations if they’re able to figure out what the new situation has in common with tasks they’ve already navigated successfully. For example, some kids would have a tough time determining what the following word problems have in common:

• Ryan sells 14 candy bars that cost $1.25 each. How much money does he collect?

• If each of the 5 players on a basketball team scores 8 points in the game, how many points does the team score altogether?

• A baker can decorate 40 cookies each hour. How many will he frost during a four-hour shift?

Many students struggle to know which operation to use in word problems because each scenario seems completely different. The problems above may seem disparate because one is about money, one about baskets, and one about cookies. In fact, though, each can be solved through multiplication. Comparing the problems can help students find similarities. Observant students, for example, might notice that “each” is repeated in all of the problems above. This word often signals multiplication. Students may find it useful to keep a sheet of notes on key words and the operations they often indicate.

Identify the Steps in a Multi-Step Procedure

Catrambone (1996 and 1998) suggests that students label the steps in multi-step procedures, such as conducing experiments, solving complex math problems, or writing. Such labels make it easier to compare the approach needed to work through similar tasks that appear different on the surface.

Producing a piece of academic writing is one of the most complex multi-step tasks asked of students. Generally the student must establish an argument, provide and explain evidence, rebut conflicting arguments, and all the while relate each point to the main point. Comparing one essay with another, though, might confuse some students. If one piece is about the use of allusion in a poem and another about the merits of recycling, what could the essays possibly have in common? Challenging students to label the steps each author conducted (stating thesis, referring back to thesis with each topic sentence, providing evidence, explaining evidence, etc.) makes it apparent that good essays, no matter the topic, have a lot more in common than might appear. Identifying the steps used to complete a task make the similarities between different tasks stand out, helping students to recognize how they can use the steps they already know to accomplish novel outcomes.

Provide Both Concrete Examples and Abstract Representations

Students often understand concrete examples best, but concrete examples can be hard to generalize so that the principles in them can be applied to other scenarios. Goldstone and Son (2005) found that learning is maximized when students are given a combination of concrete examples and abstract representations. The best learning outcomes occurred when students were exposed to concrete examples first, then gradually introduced to the abstract principle. Deans for Impact states that a combination of concrete examples and abstract representations “help students recognize the underlying structure of problems.”

To use this principle in a physics class, an instructor might begin teaching the concept of momentum by assigning the following word problems (i.e. concrete examples) and asking students to find the answers:

• Find the momentum of a 7-kilogram bowling ball traveling 17 MPH.

• Find the momentum of an 85-gram marble traveling 17 MPH.

• Find the momentum of a 450-kilogram car traveling 20 MPH.

• Find the momentum of a 283-ounce matchbox car traveling 20 MPH.

Next, the teacher should provide the following definition and formula:

“Momentum is determined by the mass of an object and its speed. The formula for calculating momentum at a given moment is p=(m)(v), where m=mass and v=velocity.”

Most textbooks provide concrete examples and formulas, but few ask students to do the work of defining the relationship between the two. This is where lasting, transferable understanding is formed.

In our example of the physics class, the instructor must help the students to see the relationship between their answers to the concrete scenarios and the abstract principle that defines momentum. Ideally, students will come up with a statement defining the relationship between the two, such as, “More mass and/or higher velocity results in more momentum. When mass, velocity, or both are decreased, momentum decreases.” That is transfer at work.

Math Apps for Building Spatial and Reasoning Skills

We recently took a look at spelling apps, recommending those that we think do the best job of providing critical orthographic skills while being fun and engaging. Today, we turn our attention to math apps we think are worth investigating.

Carstens Studios designs, creates and illustrates dynamic learning applications for young children. Daren Carstens, the owner of Carstens Studios, shares that his goal for each app is to inspire the love of math in children by giving them a new way to conceptualize mathematical concepts. Math requires spatial and sequential understanding, as well as a great deal of reasoning and logical thinking skill. 

There are an abundance of tools for building foundational numeracy and sequential skills. However, it can often be a challenge to find dynamic ways to build a child’s spatial understanding or reasoning skill. Carstens Studios offers a variety of fun, engaging tools that help students build their spatial understanding of math while encouraging reasoning and problem solving. We have detailed some favorite apps below that would add value to any math curriculum.

Math Doodles

In the introduction to this app, Mr. Carsten shares that when he was in school, math just looked like squiggles to him, leaving his mind to wander and him to doodle on the edge of his notebook. He soon realized that there were places for doodles in math, and that doodling helped him better understand the mathematical concepts. Building on this notion, each game in the Math Doodles app gives players choices for displaying the numbers in different ways (as words, Roman numerals, currency, etc.). Furthermore, each math puzzle encourages students to experiment while developing and strengthening their strategy and problem solving skills. Math Doodles builds a wide range of critical math skills, including building basic mathematical and number sense, as well as teaching basic operations, time, money and geometric concepts.

Attributes

It is true that math is more than numbers. It takes more to master math than merely mastering numeracy skills. Mr. Carstens states that, “The key to understanding math is understanding patterns.” Therefore, the Attributes app is comprised of a series of seven games, designed to challenge kids' mathematical thought processes through tables, patterns, and the concepts of attributes. The games help late-elementary children develop the abstract reasoning skills required in higher-level math. By playing the Attributes games, students will build their understanding of pattern sequences, Venn diagrams, logic, and classification.

Symmetry Shuffle 

As we have mentioned, spatial reasoning is an important element of mathematics, especially in geometry. The mathematical puzzle Symmetry Shuffle,allows students to explore line and rotational symmetry while developing their spatial sense. Through the game student will build her understanding of slides, flips and rotations of two-dimensional shapes, as well as the concepts of congruence, similarity and symmetry.

We can’t go into detail on every resource, but Carstens Studios has other apps that are also worth noting. So, if you are looking to provide students with extra addition and subtraction practice, check out Unknown Square, Sum Stacker or Connect Sums. Each of the apps has received numerous accolades and awards. But their biggest achievement is that they truly make math learning fun.

Not a Luddite

“Because I’m not a Luddite.” This was Les Perelman’s response when asked, in a Boston Globe interview, why he joined a web-based writing tutorial company after years of railing against computerized writing evaluations. Having recently retired from the directorship of MIT’s Writing Across the Curriculum program, Perelman is now the chief research scientist for WriteLab, a startup company that has partnered with dozens of college writing centers. WriteLab uses computerized algorithms to offer students feedback on their writing and guide them toward revisions.

Writelab Logo

As Perelman noted in the Globe interview, the software is not a replacement for a human teacher, but rather a supplement. By providing suggestions and questions, it not only facilitates improvement but helps students become more aware of their writing, whether they defend or reject their original choices. Perelman explained in the interview that automated writing instruction can be valuable despite computers’ shortcomings, and that he got involved because, “…if we don’t do it well, other people are going to do it badly.”

Doing it badly is what Perelman became concerned about a few years ago when the Educational Testing Service, which develops and administers the SAT, developed an e-Rater to automatically grade students’ essays. The New York Times noted that Perelman exposed significant flaws in the system by showing that he was able to earn high scores by submitting to the e-Rater prose that was essentially gibberish. Included in his findings was that the e-Rater values number and size of words over truth and logical coherence.

For example, the e-Rater generated positive feedback in response to this:
Competition which mesmerizes the reprover, especially of administrations, may be multitude. As a result of abandoning the utterance to the people involved, a plethora of cooperation can be more tensely enjoined. Additionally, a humane competition changes assemblage by cooperation. In my semiotics class, all of the agriculturalists for our personal interloper with the probe we decry contend.. . .

Clearly, Perelman had good reason to be cynical about algorithms’ evaluative and informative capabilities, although ETS disputed his findings and conclusions. However, he also has good reason to have some faith in them; and his move to WriteLab may signify that understanding. As anyone who uses a GPS knows, technology certainly can be harnessed for helpful guidance. What one recent study found, though, is that people actually tend to underestimate how much algorithms should be trusted. When researchers at the University of Pennsylvania had subjects observe and then choose between a human or statistical model to make predictions, the subjects were more likely to pick the human model. These results followed a number of other studies’ findings regarding the tendency to dismiss algorithms. In various domains such as stock forecasts or medical decisions, people tended to favor human judgement. However, research suggests that mechanical predictions often beat personal judgement, contrary to what we might be inclined to think is the case.

An openness to the power of technology along with a healthy skepticism and understanding of its limitations seems to be the best approach, in education and in general. Because, after all, we are not Luddites.

Top Five Resources for Special Education Teachers

There is an abundance of exceptional, well researched literature out there for teachers who work with diverse students to draw from. However, I find that there are a select few texts that I refer back to regularly for clarification, insight or strategies. I have culled and whittled down my bookshelf to my top five picks, and described the merits of each text:

1. Exceptional Lives: Special Education in Today's Schools (7th Edition) by Ann Turnbull, Rud Turnbull, Michael L. Wehmeyer and Karrie A. Shogren

Exceptional Lives provides a detailed, robust description of the different disability categories and federal special education laws. This excellent text is a foundational "read and return to" resource for any teacher working with diverse learners. Throughout the text, the authors use the framework of three guiding themes: Inclusion, Partnerships, and Universal Design for Progress.

2. Assistive Technology in the Classroom: Enhancing the School Experiences of Students with Disabilities by Amy G. Dell, Deborah Newton and Jerry G. Petroff

This text discusses how assistive technology can be used to achieve the ideals of universal design for learning and differentiated instruction. The authors do not focus on disability categories; they reject one-sized fits all approaches by focusing on providing strategies and tools for specific needs. However, technology is changing rapidly and any book written about technology can become obsolete quickly. Thus, one of the merits of this resource is that the text comes with an accompanying website that the authors update with new tools and advancements in the latest research. 

3. Universal Design for Learning in the Classroom: Practical Applications (What Works for Special-Needs Learners) by Tracey E. Hall, PhD, Anne Meyer, EdD, and David H. Rose, EdD

This practical text describes the underlying principles of universal design for learning (UDL), and details tangible ways to use UDL to meet the needs of diverse students across age levels. This book has the power to equip teachers with the skills required to develop classroom goals, assessments and learning materials that use UDL. The book is cross curricular and provides examples and strategies for reading, writing, science, mathematics, history, and the arts. 

4. The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind by Daniel J. Siegel, MD and Tina Payne Bryson, PhD

Although traditionally a parenting book, the principles of The Whole Brain Child are equally as valuable for teachers working with diverse learners. The book is a simple, practical resource that features twelve strategies for helping kids thrive in the face of common childhood challenges. The text hinges on the current medical and psychological understanding of child cognitive development and describes how a child’s brain is wired. The book explains how to use the understanding of a child’s brain to promote pro-social behavior in children. Drs. Siegel and Bryson also publish the The Whole-Brain Child Workbook: Practical Exercises, Worksheets and Activities to Nurture Developing Minds to help educators and parents deploy the twelve strategies.

5. Smart but Scattered: The Revolutionary "Executive Skills" Approach to Helping Kids Reach Their Potential by Peg Dawson, EdD and Richard Guare, PhD

Often learners with special needs struggle with the important executive functioning skills required to sustain focus, follow directions, complete tasks and regulate their impulses. Smart but Scattered is a great resource for both parents and teachers to help children learn the important skills of organization, time management, problem solving and coping with their emotions. The book provides simple assessment tools to help evaluate your students' strengths and challenges accompanied by activities and strategies to help build their deficient skills.

Noggle: A Math Fact Game

Today's post continues our occasional series about classroom games and tools developed by Yellin Center Learning Specialist Renee Jordan during her years as a classroom teacher. 

Grades:  2 through 8

Curricular Area: Mathematics 

Description of Game:

Mastery of math facts is a vital component of math education. Math facts are the building blocks of all other higher level math operations. Therefore, it is important that students have abundant opportunities to practice their math facts. Noggle is an enjoyable math game for students that can be used as an alternative to fact drills and traditional worksheets.

Noggle is customizable across grade levels, since the numbers can be changed to reflect the abilities of the students in your classroom. Be sure when you are picking numbers to fill in your grid that you are able locate multiple math facts. Another way to adapt this game is by the types of equations you ask your students to search for (e.g. addition, subtraction, division or multiplication).

In my classroom, I have used Noggle as an early finisher activity, a morning puzzle, or as one option in a math game lesson. I found that I was using Noggle so often as a start to the day puzzle or early finisher activity that I taped out a grid using painter's tape on a spare whiteboard mounted in my classroom. This also encouraged my students to create their own number grids on our classroom Noggle board that their peers could try and solve. Alternatively, a teaching colleague used open space on one of her bulletin boards to devise her own permanent Noggle board.

This is the Noggle Board I used with my students, but you can create your own.

Materials Needed:
One handout per student

Instructions:

1. Draw a game grid on the board

2. Fill in the game board with numbers of your choosing

Tips: 

i. Be sure to check your numbers and see that you can find a several equations that your students would be able to locate and solve independently

ii. Example of completed grid with addition, subtraction and multiplication equations

3	4	9	5
6	2	8	4
9	6	1	7
3	4	7	6

iii   Example answers from the aforementioned grid using the numeral 3 in the top left hand corner (in the shaded cell): 3 +4 = 9; 4+3=9; 9-4=3; 3+6=9; 6+3=9; 9-6=3; 3+2+1=6; 3+4+2=9 3x2=6

3.  Explain the rules of the game to your students and designate the types of equations you would like them to find (e.g. addition, subtraction, division or multiplication). 

Tips        

 i.      I often reference the game Boggle and explain that it is a similar structure but with numbers instead of letters, and that you are finding equations instead of words.

 ii.      For the younger grades I will only select addition or subtraction;  for older grades I will challenge students to find the additional equation types.

iii. I always encourage my students to find equations with more than two numbers (e.g. 1+3+4= 8) 

iv. I always encourage my students to use the communicative property (e.g. a+b=c and b+a=c)

                                                     

4.  Highlight the text at the top of the game board where the students can refer to the goal and game rules in case they forget

5. Allow the students time to play the game.

Alignment with Common Core Standards:

• CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.2.OA.B.2: Fluently add and subtract within 20 using mental strategies

• CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.OA.C.7: Fluently multiply and divide within 100, using strategies such as the relationship between multiplication and division (e.g., knowing that 8 × 5 = 40, one knows 40 ÷ 5 = 8) or properties of operations. By the end of Grade 3, know from memory all products of two one-digit numbers.

Rhyme to Read App for Beginning Readers

Ask reading teachers what books they use to teach youngsters to decode and they’ll almost unanimously mention controlled texts. These simple books are excellent tools for helping young children gain fluency and automaticity with words. 

Controlled texts tell short, simple stories using a combination of patterned words and sight words. For example, a book that focuses on the “–et” letter pattern might feature a character named Bet and tell a story using words like “wet,” “pet,” “jet,” “get,” etc. alongside common sight words like “the,” “and,” etc. Rhyming words are easier to read because children don’t need to sound out each word in its entirety; they can read many words easily by simply adding a new beginning sound to /et/. The repetitive nature of the wording in the stories helps, too. By reading the same words over and over again throughout the book, developing readers learn to recognize the words by sight instead of having to sound them out each time.

For parents hoping to give their children confidence with decoding, controlled text series can be purchased from many bookstores and websites and even downloaded from the Internet. One of the best is the Bob Books series, and Starfall also offer some good options. One of our favorites, however, is called Rhyme to Read, which is available as an app.

It’s no wonder that Rhyme to Read is great; it was developed by two expert educators. Sara Hines, who has a Ph.D. in Special Education with a focus on learning disabilities, has over 25 years of experience teaching reading and has even spent time teaching at Hunter College. Lynn Laiman, the second author, has a Master’s Degree in reading and has worked in schools for 20 years as both a classroom teacher and reading specialist. Their brainchild gives families access to a wonderful set of digital, controlled texts with the touch of a button.

In the series, new words are introduced on the left page of each book, and children can read sentences containing the words on the right page. This format makes it easy for parents or teachers to preview new words with kids so that they’re more likely to feel successful when they encounter the words in the context of the story. A list of all the words introduced in each book is available on the last page, too, offering a chance for seamless review. The books increase in difficulty throughout the series, and kids will come across words they’ve already learned as they progress to more advanced books.

The first book in the series is free, and the remaining 19 books can be purchased for $9.99 from the iTunes store. As far as apps go, Rhyme to Read is on the pricier side, but this well-designed program is well worth it. It’s far less expensive to buy the digital “books” than it is to purchase a set of leveled readers, for one thing. And Rhyme to Read has capabilities paper books simply don’t. For example, children can tap words to hear them read aloud. Target words, the ones that follow the featured pattern, are read in one voice, and sight words are read in another. Even more ingenious, tapping on the word on the left page, where it is first introduced, plays the word in a segmented way (i.e. “c-at”). This helps them to understand how to attach the new beginning sound (/c/) to the familiar pattern (/-at/). On the right page, though, they can hear the word read fluently (“cat”).

Rhyme to Read has received rave reviews from users, and we are very impressed as well! We hope this thoughtful resource is helpful to you and the young children in your life.

Back-to-School Help

For New York City students, the excellent website InsideSchools has a list of free and low cost programs that offer supplementary instruction for students in elementary through high school, designed to allow them,  "to explore new interests, get extra support, and supplement what is being taught during the school day." As  Liz Willen, one of the InsideSchool bloggers notes, New York City Schools have still not recovered from significant budget cuts and that, coupled with increased specialization of many schools -- music, art, technology, etc. -- means that some students lack access to programs they want or need. This list is one way to access such programs or skills.

Now that school is well underway, homework is something both students and their parents need to deal with on an almost daily basis. A website from the New York City Department of Education has a list of resources to help students at all levels (and their parents) with homework and test preparation. The Brooklyn Public Library has homework helpers at many of its locations, ready to assist students in grades one through eight. Families from other areas should check with their local library; many have in-person or online assistance available.

photo: bgilliard/flickr

And don't forget some of the "tried and true" resources for homework and academic support - websites like Kahn Academy, with video instruction in almost every subject in which a student might need assistance, and Spark Notes study guides and Spark Charts instructional materials for students at all levels, including medical and law school.

Literacy Lessons from Teachers College - Part IV - Writing

Today's blog is the final installment of a four-part series on a conference I attended on literacy in the elementary and middle grades, hosted by faculty from Columbia University’s Teachers College. Through lectures, readings, discussions, and collaborative group work, I learned a great deal about the implications of current research on literacy assessment and instruction. Check out my prior posts on phonics, vocabulary, and reading comprehension.

Dotmatchbox via flickr cc

Teaching writing can be one of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of literacy instruction. Writing is an enormously demanding activity. To do it well, students must be able to generate and organize ideas, form grammatical sentences using appropriate vocabulary, and combine motor skills with their memories about letter formation, word spellings, and written mechanics. 

The benefits of writing make it worth the trouble, however. Written work gives students the opportunity to solidify thoughts about material they’re learning. Writing can also make students better readers by acquainting them with different kinds of texts and structures. And research indicates that sharing personal experiences through venues like written narratives benefits students psychologically and physiologically.

Some of the most compelling writing insights presented at the Teachers College conference were:

Purposeful Writing

Students must have experience writing with different purposes. The ubiquitous five-paragraph essay is certainly a useful format through which to refine analytical thinking. But developing writers need to hone their ideation and language use through other formats, too. Students should experiment with the kind of language used to describe, narrate, inform, and persuade/analyze. Studies show that the most effective writing instruction gives students the chance to write across genres, as well. Younger students should begin to experiment with persuasive pieces, analytical essays, informative texts, and reflective journal entries. And older students need to continue expressing themselves through poems, stories, and other creative formats.

Writing instruction works best when it takes place beyond the language arts classroom. Content area teachers should give students the chance to write in forms fitting different subjects, whether this takes the form of lab reports in science, papers comparing and contrasting different systems of government in civics, or an explanatory paragraph justifying the answer to a math problem.

Effective Instruction

There are numerous ways to teach writing well and no single strategy works best for every developing writer. However, research indicates that the best instruction teaches flexible strategy use. Students need to understand which strategies to use for various types of writing, and they need to be able to choose independently which ones to use.

Optimal writing instruction also goes beyond the planning stage. Many students have the experience of planning a piece of writing by generating a diagram or an outline first. However, some kids aren’t ready to move directly from this plan to the first draft. Teachers often observe that students fail to refer back to their plan when writing; this may be because they’re not sure how to use it to assist them. Good instructors help students use the plan they generate to scaffold their first draft. But the completion of the first draft is not the end of the writing process.

Revising Versus Editing

Many students don’t know the difference between these two terms. The best way to polish papers may be to approach the proofreading process in two stages. First, students should revise by reviewing the content of their work. They should make sure what they’ve written accurately reflects their ideas and that their organization is effective. They should be certain that their writing isn’t repetitive and consider their word choices. Editing, the process used to find and fix mechanical errors, should take place only after students complete the revision process. When editing, students should look for mechanical errors (like spelling and punctuation mistakes) and make certain they haven’t written any fragments or run-on sentences.

At the Yellin Center, we have found that a two-part checklist works well to facilitate this review process. Students should read through their work once with a revision checklist, then read it again using the editing checklist. And students need to know that the best writers—even professionals!—often reread their work multiple times over many days to give themselves a more objective perspective.

Literacy Lessons from Teachers College - Phonics

I recently attended an exciting two-day conference on literacy in the elementary and middle grades hosted by faculty from Columbia University’s Teachers College. Through lectures, readings, discussions, and collaborative group work I learned a great deal about the implications of current research on literacy assessment and instruction. I look forward to sharing what I learned about phonics, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and writing with readers of the Yellin Center’s blog!

Phonics instruction, which teaches children to appreciate the sounds that make up language and link those sounds to letters, is one of the first steps along the path to becoming a reader. It was, therefore, a fitting topic to begin the conference at Teachers College. Some of the main points covered were:

The Reading Wars

Beginning in 1870 and continuing for more than a century, two opposing schools of thought debated the best way to reading. Proponents of phonics instruction believed that teaching alphabetic coding skills was the best method. They felt that a systematic approach to the decoding process was the only way to achieve word recognition skills. Whole language disciples, on the other hand, believed that reading evolves naturally, like speech, when children are exposed to rich, high-print environments and that the focus of instruction should be on making meaning rather than on learning decoding procedures. Current research indicates that an either-or approach isn’t the answer, however.

What Works

Studies suggest that reading instruction should incorporate systematic, explicit phonics instruction alongside lessons about strategy use; in other words, good instruction should include elements of both phonics and whole-language.

Readers form connections between the spellings of words and the way they are pronounced. These connections are facilitated by an understanding of two things: 1) phonemic awareness, or the ability to understand the discreet sounds that make up language, and 2) knowledge of the alphabetic system. Put another way, word recognition is helped by phonics. But developing readers also rely on pre-existing knowledge about language, like knowing word meanings and grammatical sentence structures. This proficiency with language allows kids to use meaning to help them make predictions about words. For example, most children with no literacy knowledge could probably guess what word probably completes the sentence “Yesterday, David XXX a sandwich for lunch.”

Importantly, good instructors teach not only the rules but show beginning readers when and how to use them. Young children should have an arsenal of strategies ready at hand when they encounter an unknown word and should recognize when to use each one. If they can’t sound out the word, perhaps they can look at the pictures for help. If there are no pictures, they may be able to look at the first letter and think about the meaning of the sentence to guess what word probably belongs.

Unfortunately, no single curriculum is best for every student. Different kids will find it easier to be successful with different methods. But curriculum that provides a balance is likely to be most effective.

The Best Texts

Finally, studies show that students need to interact with various kinds of texts. So, controlled texts (books used only for instruction that contain words that follow carefully chosen patterns) are excellent instructional tools but should not be used in isolation. Children should have the chance to read authentic texts, too, across a variety of genres.

Stay tuned for additional posts about vocabulary, reading comprehension, and writing!

Algebra in the Real World

A couple of years ago, Queens College Professor Andrew Hacker wrote a provocative piece in The New York Times entitled, "Is Algebra Necessary?". In it, he notes that completing required high school or college algebra courses is a significant bar to graduation for many students. He explains that it is not the useful aspects of mathematics that are the problem; instead, it is the way algebra is taught and the tenuous connection between classroom formulas and real life applications that raise questions about the usefulness and necessity of algebra courses.

We have seen a number of students, with and without math disabilities, struggle with this subject matter and are not surprised by Dr. Hacker's statement that in the City University system in New York, where he taught since the early 1970's "...57 percent of its students didn’t pass its mandated algebra course. The depressing conclusion of a faculty report: “failing math at all levels affects retention more than any other academic factor." "

There are many excellent tools, books,  and games that help students build algebra skills and support the importance of mathematics and algebra as part of school curricula and as a life skill. Take a look at the "tags" along the right hand side of this blog page for the subject "algebra" to see our relevant posts.

Following up on Dr. Hacker's article, the Times came up with suggestions for using algebra within the context of the subjects covered by the newspaper. In a post on its Learning Network titled, "N Ways to Apply Algebra With The New York Times", Patrick Honner lists numerous ways to apply algebraic formulas. These include:

• Exploring the housing market, including the impact of changing mortgage rates and whether it is less expensive to buy or rent an apartment
• Reviewing the numbers used in college rankings and creating an individualized formula for ranking colleges
• Looking at the costs of owning a car and exploring depreciation rates
• Determining whether it pays to buy a seven day, 30 day, or single ride MetroCard

Whether you and your students agree or disagree with Dr. Hacker, we can all agree that algebra is not disappearing from high schools and colleges any time soon. If you love it, or just want to get it over with, spending some time applying algebra in the real world may be a useful way to use your brain this summer. 

Dreambox - A Fun Option for Summer Math Learning

The words “summer vacation” don’t conjure up images of math remediation in most kids’ minds. But for those who struggled during the school year, ceasing math instruction completely during the summer is risky. Many kids need continued exposure to math to maintain what they know and maybe even gain some ground. At the Yellin Center, we’re firm believers that kids need lots of unstructured time to be, well, kids during the summer, however. So how to strike a balance? Dreambox may be the answer for some families.

Dreambox is a web-based math software package that provides math instruction in the form of games. But there’s serious research behind the fun. The skills taught are carefully sequenced and the program is able to continually assess users, allowing students to progress at their own rate. Based on answers the student enters, the program identifies and remediates areas of demonstrated need.

One important thing to note about Dreambox is that parents cannot dictate what specific skills the program will teach. In other words, there is no way to force the program to align with student’s classroom curriculum. Instead, Dreambox will identify gaps in learning that may have gone undetected in previous instruction and remediate those areas. This capability is what makes Dreambox such an ideal tool for summer. Math is a very cumulative subject, so often a child struggling with a particular concept today is actually demonstrating a weak understanding of skills learned last year. The software will fill holes in a student’s understanding and provide him with a solid platform from which to begin next year’s math learning.

Because the program is fun, parents won’t need to beg and plead to persuade kids to spend twenty minutes playing a few times a week. And families on the go can even download the Dreambox app to keep learning via tablets and smartphones. Dreambox may even be appropriate for the future mathematician in the house; it can give her a taste of more advanced material if she whizzes through all the more basic lessons.

Although kids won’t need adult support to use Dreambox, the Parent Dashboard allows parents to stay in the loop by monitoring their kids’ progress. Dreambox will target weak areas, of course, but information about what skills still need work may be useful to teachers at the beginning of the 2014-2015 school year.

Visit the Dreambox homepagefor more information. The program is available for whole-school use, but the “Getting Started” tab provides pricing and information about purchasing subscription for a single child or just a few kids. A free 14-day trial is also available for those who want to take the program for a spin.

No software program we’ve seen can take the place of a skilled, intuitive instructor. But for families strapped for cash or kids who need just a boost or a platform for maintaining their skills, Dreambox could be an excellent solution.

Benefits of Learning to Write by Hand

We were fascinated by a recent piece in The New York Times about the controversy over handwriting instruction. The article thoughtfully summarizes work by neuroscientists demonstrating that learning to write by hand plays an important role in a number of developing neural pathways. Handwriting appears to have a positive impact on reading, idea generation when writing, and memory formation when taking notes in class. Keyboarding does not appear to have the same impact. Interestingly, manuscript and cursive writing each seem to provide different benefits, and research indicates that learning each style of writing leads to greater cognitive engagement than using only one approach. At a time when many schools are abandoning cursive instruction, this finding is particularly provocative.

As our world becomes ever-more reliant on technology, it is important to develop a true understanding of the impact that writing by hand has on the learning process. In our practice, we speak with many parents who are unsure whether to belabor handwriting development when their kids genuinely struggle. Wouldn’t it make more sense to simply transition to typing since that’s what they’ll use when they’re adults, they wonder? And, as the Times piece points out, the nearly ubiquitous Common Core standards suggest that children learn to hand write legible letters only in kindergarten and first grade; after that, the focus is shifted to keyboarding skills.

Here at the Yellin Center, we often find ourselves considering “the genius of and versus the tyranny of or.” Simply supplying children with a list of accommodations (e.g. either do it this way or learn it that way) is often limiting; a better strategy is establishing a system of accommodations that works in conjunction with a carefully crafted instructional plan (e.g. do this and that, too). Some students need help with a mechanical aspect of a task to complete classwork and should be given workarounds to get through particular tasks. But that doesn’t mean those mechanics shouldn’t be practiced at a separate time. For example, a child who struggles to sound out words certainly needs to develop those critical decoding skills. However, it’s also important that she listen to texts that match her intellectual level so she can practice her comprehension skills and build a love of literature. Learning to decode and listening to texts is a much better approach than only working on either decoding instruction or using audiobooks.

Children should learn how to write by hand, but if they are having difficulty with letter formation they should be given “bypass strategies” like having someone scribe for them, using speech-to-text software, or keyboarding, so their capacity for developing rich written output is not hijacked by their weak graphomotor function. It is essential, however, that kids continue developing handwriting “off-line”; as their mastery and automaticity grows, handwriting can be brought online and integrated into the writing process gradually.

Get a Sense of Your Number Sense with Panamath

Research suggests that students’ achievement in math class may be related to their innate number sense, and it’s no wonder. Number sense, the intuitive recognition of numbers and numerical relationships, is something that animals—including humans!—throughout the world are born with. Panamath, whose name comes in part from the acronym for the Psychological Assessment of Numerical Ability, is an organization hoping to understand the relationship between in-born number sense and math achievement. Through a grant from the National Science foundation, they’re investigating number sense. And if you’re curious about how yours stacks up, their online test is an interesting (and free) resource.

The test is simple enough for even a young child to take: A series of colored dots flashes across the screen and test-takers must decide whether they saw more blue or yellow ones. Both accuracy and decision speed are measured. When the test is over, one can view one’s results compared with other same-age testers. Individuals may wish to take the test out of curiosity, but teachers and clinicians can download it in order to save students’ results. As more is learned about the relationship between number sense and math instruction, gauging a student’s innate skills could be very useful for shaping lessons.

Results not as high as you’d hoped? Never fear! Number sense, like just about every human ability, can be improved. Here are a few ideas for helping kids sharpen their number sense:

Represent Numbers with Different Objects

Pick a number, starting with a small number like five for very young kids. Ask your child to collect different objects and put them in groups that contain that number. (For example, your child might find five rubber bands, five grains of rice, five cotton swabs, etc.) Write the number on a several paper plates and load them with the objects. Point out that groups of ten marbles, ten pieces of puffed rice cereal, ten large crackers, and ten toy cars may take up different amounts of space, but they still contain the same number of objects. Leave the display out for a few days to help your child create an association between the number symbol and the number of items in the group, then try again with a different number.

Comparison Game

Play a guessing game in which you compare groups of different-sized objects with your child. For example, ask your child to cover her eyes and lay out four wooden blocks and seven beads. Then ask your child to look quickly at both groups and point to the one that has more. Next, count the groups to see if she was right. Make the game more challenging by laying out more objects and objects that are closer in size.

Practicing Estimation

There are infinite ways to do this with children. At the grocery store, ask your child to decide which line has the fewest people in it, then count the people in your line and other lines while you wait for the cashier to determine whether your child’s guess was right. Enjoying a treat of candy? Ask kids to guess how many pieces of each color they see or how many pieces there are altogether. Make the estimation games trickier by introducing proportions: Is your child’s little sister half as tall as he is? A third of the height of her father? Measure everyone to see. Is the area of the living room twice the area of your child’s bedroom? More? Less?

Motion Math Games

Evidence suggests that the digital games developed by Motion Math may help kids improve their number sense. The easiest of the games is appropriate for three- or four-year-olds, while other offerings will challenge and entertain kids through early middle school.

How Much is a Million? by David M. Schwartz

This outstanding picture book was made to help children understand large numbers, which can be difficult to conceptualize. No time to get to the library? The book is (of course) available as a charming video  on YouTube.

For even more ideas, investigate the “Number Sense and Place Value” series by NRICH, which contains a wealth of activities for helping very young and elementary-aged children to improve their number sense



This post contains our own ideas as well as inspiration from Panamath (www.panamath.org) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

NCTM’s Illuminations is a Fantastic Resource for Math Instruction

After sifting through a seemingly endless list of math apps and online math games recently, we were pleasantly surprised and energized to discover Illuminations. While much of the content we viewed on other websites was more of the same, Illuminations was, well, illuminating. A resource developed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics is bound to be impressive and insightful, and Illuminations, we discovered, is both.

Illuminations offers 108 online activities that teach a multitude of skills, from counting to calculus. With material for students in, and teachers of, kindergarten through 12th grade, there is almost certainly something here for everyone. Illuminations’s resources cleverly meld the “why” and the “how” of math so that students will not only understand what to do but understand the reasons they’re doing it.

Some activities are very simple, geared toward helping students to internalize a single concept. For example, Geometric Solids invites students to explore the relationship between the number of a solid figure’s faces, edges, and vertices by tallying up the numbers of those features on different three-dimensional shapes (all of which can be rotated by dragging the mouse and made to appear either opaque or transparent). Half Angle provides a simple, visual explanation for why bisecting the angles of a triangle can reveal the location of the center of a circle inscribed within that triangle. For the most part, though, the tools focus more on the exploration of broader concepts and skill building. Here are a few more examples of activities found on Illuminations:


Coin Box

Young students mastering money can move coins around the screen as they count them, practice trading coins for other coins of equivalent value (for example, five pennies can be exchanged for a nickel), and drag coins onto a grid with 100 squares to help with making change from a dollar. The coins even make a satisfying clinking noise as they are moved!


Factorize

To teach why a number can have multiple pairs of factors, Factorization provides a 100 square grid and invites students to draw rectangles. The number of squares within the rectangle (i.e. its area) is displayed as the rectangle grows or shrinks, and when students get the number they want they can count the squares on each side of the rectangle to find the factors of the number. The activity indicates how many factorizations there are for each number so students will know when to keep drawing for more solutions. For example, if the number to be factored is 18, the game will prompt the student to draw three different rectangles as they work to factor it (i.e. 18x1, 9x2, 6x3)


Algebra Tiles

This insightful activity allows students to represent algebraic expressions visually using colored squares and rectangles for terms. Once students have set up the expression (Illuminations will check to be sure they’re right), they can move terms from one side of equation to the other and change colors to indicate whether terms are negative or positive. The “cancel out zero pairs” button makes instructions like “subtract from both sides” concrete and visible.


One big caveat applies to this wonderful site, however. The activities are fantastic teaching tools, but most students will have trouble using them independently. This is the kind of site that a frustrated parent or teacher could turn to when the umpteenth explanation of a concept doesn't sink in, but they’ll likely need to sit next to the student and explain how to use the activities and the relationship between the activities on the screen and the paper math work the student must complete. But please, don’t be deterred. We are enormously impressed with the astute instruction provided by Illuminations and recommend it without reservation for both instruction and practice.

Interleaving Can Lead to Improved Outcomes

Here at The Yellin Center we have long suggested that students benefit when their assignments are designed with the concept of "interleaving" in mind -- where no two problems or questions of the same kind appear in order. So, for example, a homework assignment might include newly learned long division problems, but also some multiplication and even addition and subtraction. This is different from more traditional tests or problem sets, where the questions follow the blocks of the curriculum and material from earlier lessons is only reviewed when it is time for year end tests.

Photo: Silenceofnight/Flickr

A recent discussion of this practice was included in an excellent Science Times section of The New York Times which focused on "learning what works" in education. The article looks at research from a team at the University of South Florida which looked at interleaved math instruction in a small sample (140 students in all) in a Tampa middle school. The students found that interleaved problem sets took a bit longer to do, at first, but that when they needed to study for a test they could spend less time reviewing because all the material they had learned was still fresh in their minds.

Furthermore, the results when the students took tests were remarkable. The scores on problems presented in the traditional manner averaged 38% -- but they scored an average of 72% on the material they covered through interleaved problems. The Times discussion included opinions of various psychologists and learning researchers as to why interleaving is beneficial, which ranged from noting that it engaged particular kinds of memory (something we call "paired associate memory"), to opining that since students need more time when they are first working with interleaving, the additional assistance they may get from their instructors makes a difference in how much they learn.

The research team plans to expand its investigation to see the impact of interleaving when it is used more broadly, with a far greater number of students. We will be interested to see the results.