Archive for the 'Reading' Category

Free DI reading program downloads!

Published on 1 February 2012 in Administration, News, Reading and Technology. 0 Comments

As noted in a post a couple of weeks ago (“Free Funnix returns!”), the folks at Royal Limited Partnership are giving away free copies of Funnix, a beginning reading program. Funnix is a sequence of instructional lessons that shows young children the basics of early decoding as well as the fundamentals of comprehension. They are packaged as computer programs (note bene: Because they are Flash-based, they only work on some operating systems) with all the necessary accompanying worksheets and such. Learn more about this opportunity to receive a copy of the program by visiting this special page of the Funnix Web site. Go there during the month of February 2012.

These programs are built on Direct Instruction principles, so they have the entire line of research associated with those principles standing behind them. They require that an informed adult guide the student (checking answers, providing feedback) either in tutorial or small-group situations.

Read Free Funnix returns!, if you wish.

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Free Funnix returns!

Published on 17 January 2012 in Administration, News, Primary, Reading, Technology and The press. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Loyal readers of TE will recall that the folks at Royal Limited Partnership gave away copies of the Funnix Beginning Reading program in 2011. Welp, it’s going to happen again! Yes indeedy! Quoting from a page on the Funnix Web site:

From February 1 through 16th, the Funnix Beginning Reading program will be free for download–no strings, no hidden costs.

The Funnix sequence teaches 2 year’s worth of reading skills. During last year’s promotion, more than 40,000 people received the Funnix Beginning Reading program free. Even higher numbers are anticipated for this year.

If you’re in the market for an excellent beginning reading program, sign up for your free download of Funnix Beginning Reading. The program has been offered for $25 during most of 2011; however, the price will rise to $38 following the giveaway in February.

Funnix is a computer-based early reading program that delivers the essential components for decoding instruction. A teacher, parent, teaching assistant, or other competent reader can work with an individual child or small group and provide the guidance needed by the student or students as they go through the instructional activities provided via the computer. It’s predicated on all the principles of Direct Instruction (its authors are Zig and Owen Engelmann). The lessons are lively and fun. There’s plenty of monitoring and opportunities for individualization.

Now, you can’t register early for this giveaway. You have to arrive after 1 February 2012. But, you can go to the Funnix giveaway announcement and look at the various offerings now, and you can become familiar with the products in advance, and you can be prepared (i.e., bookmark the site, put a reminder in your calendar, and so forth).

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Free gift from Education Consumers Foundation!

Published on 6 December 2011 in Administration, Arithmetic and mathematics, Assessment, Behavior Management, Bookshelf, Content learning, Elementary, News, Policy, Primary, Reading, Research, Secondary, Spelling, Standards, Teacher education, The press and Written Expression. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

partial image of cover of Clear Teaching

Isn’t it unusual to get something for free that is actually worth a lot? The good folks over at Education Consumers Foundation (ECF) are giving away a small book that is quite valuable, and I encourage readers to download it, read it, and tell their friends to get it, too.

What are they giving away? It’s a book called Clear Teaching: With Direct Instruction, Siegfried Engelmann Discovered a Better Way of Teaching by Shep Barbash. As one can tell from the subtitle, it’s about Zig Engelmann’s work on education. I talked with Mr. Barbash as he worked on the manuscript for the book, read an earlier version of it, and am very impressed with this finished product. It’s even more impressive that the book is now out in the wild for free. Kudos to Mr. Barbash, John Stone, and all the others at ECF who made this happen.

Clear Teaching – The Book
Written by veteran journalist Shepard Barbash over a period of 10 years, Clear Teaching is a well-researched, highly readable introduction to Direct Instruction (DI), a systematic teaching approach which for more than 40 years has dramatically improved learning outcomes for students of all abilities and from all walks of life. The book looks at the development of DI through the early experiences of its creator, Zig Engelmann; explains the principles that underpin this approach; and looks at DI’s reception in the world of teaching, where it has been effectively shunned despite a formidable research base and example after example of transformative success.

The image at the top of the post is hot, but readers can also click here to go to the ECF page where they can download the PDF.

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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?’

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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’

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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.

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Funnix is free for a few more days

Published on 14 January 2011 in News, Parents, Primary, Reading and Technology. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Until 31 January 2011, one can download a copy of Funnix a tutorial program for teaching beginning reading skills just for the asking. Yes, you have to submit a name and an e-mail address, that’s the catch.

Funnix, authored by Siegfied Engelmann, Owen Engelmann, and Karen Davis, is composed of 120 30-minute lessons delivered via compact disk on a computer. An adult coaches the child as she learns fundamentals of decoding (e.g., letter-sound correspondences, blending), practices reading words (lists, sentences, and passages), and develops basic comprehension skills (e.g., literal connections). Children answer some questions verbally, click answers to others directly on the computer, and write responses to others in workbooks. The adult monitors and provides feedback. (The package includes materials guiding the adult’s support.)
Continue reading ‘Funnix is free for a few more days’

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Teaching effectively and LD

Published on 4 October 2010 in Administration, Arithmetic and mathematics, Assessment, Content learning, Elementary, News, Reading, Research, Secondary, Teacher education and Written Expression. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Folks who are interested in effective teaching for students with Learning Disabilities (and other students as well) can learn a lot at the up-coming conference of the Division for Learning Disabilities in Baltimore (MD, US) later this month. Michael Gerber assembled a fine group of sessions, as shown at the end of this post.

Check out the all-star cast. Note the coverage of relevant topics ranging from RTI to math, primary to adolescent ages (with some adult interests included!), and skills to cognition. On top of the fine content, there will be excellent opportunities to mix and mingle with other people attending the conference as well as presenters and members of DLD’s executive board during social events that include breakfasts, a luncheon, and a reception. Lots of materials are included.

Learn more about the TeachingLD Conference 2010, including how to register on line.

  • Using Evidence-Based Interventions to Teach Primary Level Students Early Numeracy Concepts and Skills
    —Diane P. Bryant (University of Texas at Austin) & Brian R. Bryant (University of Texas at Austin)
  • The Math Learning Companion: An Individualized Intervention for Students with Math Learning Disabilities
    —Lindy Crawford (University of Colorado at Colorado Springs) & Barbara Freeman (Digital Directions International)
  • Responsive, Comprehensive, and Intensive Intervention for Older Struggling Readers
    —Lynn M. Gelzheiser (University at Albany) & Laura Hallgren Flynn (University at Albany)
  • Adults with Learning Disabilities: Current Research, Evidence-based Conclusions, and Emerging Directions
    —Paul J. Gerber (Virginia Commonwealth University)
  • Effective Rime-Based Instruction to Improve the Decoding Skills of Students with Learning Disabilities
    —Sara J. Hines (Hunter College), Jennifer T. Klein (Hunter College), & Kathleen M. Ryan (The Churchill School)
  • The Essay Writing Strategy: Helping Students Write More Organized and Complete Responses to Essay Questions and Prompts
    —Charles A. Hughes (Penn State University) & Bill Therrien (University of Iowa)
  • Strategy Training, Problem Solving, and Working Memory in Children with Math Disabilities
    —Olga Jerman (Frostig Center), Amber Moran (University of California at Santa Barbara), Cathy Lussier (University of California at Riverside), Michael Orosco (University of California at Riverside), Lee Swanson (University of California at Riverside), & Michael Gerber (University of California at Santa Barbara)
  • The Technology and Pedagogy of Universal Design for Learning
    —Peggy King-Sears (George Mason University)
  • Early Reading Intervention for Struggling Readers
    —Jill Marie Leafstedt (CSU Channel Islands) & Catherine Richards-Tutor (CSU Long Beach)
  • Response to Intervention Screening and Progress-Monitoring Practices in 41 Local Schools
    —Daryl F. Mellard (University of Kansas)
  • Strategic Instruction for Building Vocabulary
    —J. Ron Nelson (University of Nebraska, Lincoln)
  • Beyond Reading Words: Improving Reading Rate, Fluency, and Comprehension
    —Rollanda E. O’Connor (University of California at Riverside)
  • Growth in Literacy, Language, and Cognition in Children with Reading Disabilities who are English Language Learners
    —Michael J. Orosco (University of California at Riverside), Lee Swanson (University of California at Riverside), Michael Gerber (University of California at Santa Barbara), & Danielle Guzman (University of California at Santa Barbara)
  • Response to Intervention in Math: An Instructional Focus
    —Paul J. Riccomini (The Pennsylvania State University)
  • Developing Text Level Literacy Skills in Beginning Readers
    —Emily J. Solari (University of Texas Health Science Center Houston) & Alexis L. Filippini (San Francisco State University)
  • Reading Progress Monitoring for Secondary School Students: Reading-Aloud and Maze-Selection Measures
    —Renata Ticha (University of Minnesota) & Miya Miura Wayman (University of Minnesota)

Please note that I am compensated by DLD as its executive director so this is, indeed, a shameless promotion!

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