Author Archive for JohnL

Page 2 of 78

Something odd going on?

Published on 20 June 2011 in Musings, News, Parents, Reading, Research and The press. 2 Comments

As a parent of a child with reading problems, what would you think if a nearby college or university offered a special summer reading program that sounded especially promising? What if you went to a Web site branded with the university’s trademark “logo” and saw well-produced videos with testimonials from parents and phrases such as these: “Your child will get excited about learning to read, and the program will lay the foundation for a strong start in reading and school?” And, your child can benefit in as few as 10 hours!

Would you be tempted? Over on Reading and Other Learning Disabilities, Professors Howard Margolis and Gary Brannigan are skeptical about the possibilities. They explain in their post, “Rutgers University’s 10-Hour Summer Reading Program: Serious Concerns.” Writing for the team blog, Professor Margolis, reported his skepticism about the claims after reading a mailer describing “a summer reading programs [that] would quickly ‘turn poor readers into good readers.’”

Continue reading ‘Something odd going on?’

Sphere: Related Content

More free Funnix! It’s math this time.

Published on 2 June 2011 in Arithmetic and mathematics, News, Technology and The press. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , .

The folks who brought us the give-away of Funnix Beginning Reading are doing it again! They’re giving away Funnix Beginning Math for free throughout the month of June 2011. Funnix Beginning Math is a 100-lesson computer program designed for children who have not learned beginning math operations. One can download the program from the Funnix site (see link at the end of this post). All of the components of Funnix Beginning Math are included in the download—100 animated, computer-based lessons; workbook materials; a teaching guide, including explicit directions for the teacher; and a placement test for assessing and placing the student.
Continue reading ‘More free Funnix! It’s math this time.’

Sphere: Related Content

Kauffman’s Tragicomedy recognized

Published on 11 May 2011 in Administrivia, Bookshelf, News, Policy and The press. 0 Comments Tags: , , .
J. M. Kauffman 2011

The Independent Publisher, a resource for publishers who are not the giant publishing houses that dominate contemporary book publishing these days, annually awards the “IPPY” Awards, which recognize what the Independent Publisher bills as “the best indie-published books of the year in 69 categories, 11 regions, and 12 Outstanding Books of the Year.” For 2011, in the category of “Education/Academic/Teaching,” the Silver Award was made to friend-of-TE James M. Kauffman’s The Tragicomedy of Public Education: Laughing and Crying, Thinking and Fixing which was published by Full Court Press.

Here’s a huzzah for Jim and his book! And here’s a link to Amazon for those who haven’t had a chance to get a copy and read it: http://amzn.to/jmktragicomedy.

Sphere: Related Content

Teaching spelling promotes general literacy

Published on 9 May 2011 in News, Reading, Research, Spelling and The press. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

In “Using Encoding Instruction to Improve the Reading and SpellingPerformances of Elementary Students At Risk for Literacy Difficulties: A Best-Evidence Synthesis,” professsors Beverly Weiser and Patricia Mathes of Southern Methodist University reviewed of studies of the effects of spelling instruction on literacy performance and found that systematic instruction in helping students to convert speech into print promotes not just spelling but also reading competence. What is more, the benefits appear to persist over time.

Using Encoding Instruction to Improve the Reading and SpellingPerformances of Elementary Students At Risk for Literacy Difficulties: A Best-Evidence Synthesis

Although connectionist models provide a framework explaining how the decoding and encoding abilities work reciprocally to enhance reading and spelling ability, encoding instruction in today’s schools is not a priority. Although a limited amount of high-quality experimental or control studies to date (N = 11) give empirical support to using direct, explicit encoding instruction to increase the reading and spelling abilities of those students at risk for literacy failure, the benefits of integrating this instruction into current reading curriculums warrant further consideration. Students receiving encoding instruction and guided practice that included using (a) manipulatives (e.g., letter tiles, plastic letters) to learn phoneme–grapheme relationships and words and (b) writing phoneme–grapheme relationships and words made from these correspondences significantly outperformed contrast groups not receiving encoding instruction. Robust Cohen’s d effect sizes, favoring the treatment groups, were found in areas of phonemic awareness, spelling, decoding, fluency, comprehension, and writing. Educational implications of these findings suggest that there is support for using encoding instruction to increase the literacy performances of at-risk primary grade students and that encoding instruction can be successful in improving the reading and spelling performances of older students with learning disabilities. Importantly, there is also evidence to support the transfer effects of early encoding instruction on later reading, writing, and spelling performances.

Continue reading ‘Teaching spelling promotes general literacy’

Sphere: Related Content

Thanks, Teachers!

Published on 2 May 2011 in Musings. 2 Comments

I’m using a capital T for Teachers, because I’m referring to those who put their students’ learning first, who adopt evidence-based teaching methods, who let scientific findings be their guide to teaching. They are heros. They are going against the tide, and they deserve lots of support.

thanks teachers

Sphere: Related Content

FLASH! John Stuart Mill to the rescue!

Published on 18 April 2011 in Administration, Bookshelf, News and The press. 2 Comments

In Could John Stuart Mill Have Saved Our Schools? Siegfried Engelmann and Douglas Carnine explain what Mill’s logical analysis contributes to understanding how students learn, what educators should do to teach, and the consequences of education’s failure to apply fundamental scientific reasoning. The publisher doesn’t seem to have a link to it yet, but the ISBN is 1-57861-745-6.

If you want to get an idea of what’s in this book, watch this 30-min video in which Mr. Engelmann explains the ideas.

Sphere: Related Content

Lesaux promotes vocabulary instruction

Published on 16 April 2011 in Reading, Research, Secondary and Written Expression. 0 Comments

Speaking at the 2011 George Graham Lecture at the University of Virginia’s Curry School, Nonie Lesaux explained that students who do not have English skills—English language learners, English as a second language, language minority learners, and so forth—at the middle school level need to learn an academic vocabulary. After presenting background research showing that much of the problem in reading for students in US schools who do not have English as their primary language is not in mastering the phonological aspects of literacy, and not just in learning labels for nouns, she described a 20-week vocabulary curriculum for teaching students language used in academic texts.

Professor Lesaux, a member of the faculty at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, has conducted extensive research using multiple methods across diverse topics related to language learning and literacy. Her message is clear: Helping students, including those who are not native speakers of English, requires systematic and comprehensive instruction in multiple areas, including vocabulary, and we can’t expect that simply teaching students words as labels will be sufficient. We have to get them to use those words.

Kelley, J. G., Lesaux, N. K., Kieffer, M. A., & Faller, S. E. (2010). Effective academic vocabulary instruction in the urban middle school. The Reading Teacher, 64, 5-14.

Kieffer, M. J., & Lesaux, N. (in press). Breaking down to build meaning: Morphology, vocabulary, and reading comprehension in the urban classroom. The Reading Teacher.

For more, peruse Professor Lesaux’s vita.

Sphere: Related Content

B. Cook on evidence-based practices

Published on 25 February 2011 in Administration, News, Policy, Teacher education and The press. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , .

Over on SpedPro I have a post about an up-coming Webinar on evidence-based practices presented by Bryan Cook. A product of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) and and CEC’s Division for Research, the session is billed as helping educators answer questions such as these:

  • What exactly does evidence-based practice mean for practitioners?
  • How are evidence-based practices different from “best practices” and “research-based practices”?
  • Where can you find them?
  • How should you select them?
  • How can you use them?
  • How can you evaluate them?

I haven’t seen the syllabus, but I bet this will be a worthwhile session. For one small fee, one can register as many folks as you can gather around a computer and a projector; and then you get a copy of the Webinar to review later, as well. It’s like a ready-made, re-usable staff-development program. To read the SpedPro post, follow this link. Alternatively, simply follow this link to register for the session!

Sphere: Related Content

Bad Behavior has blocked 1693 access attempts in the last 7 days.

*/goog +1 script added 20110711 */