Webinar Session 3 Notes on the New Jersey Dyslexia Handbook

Overview of the Webinar Series

• Purpose: The webinar series aims to assist school districts in comprehensively understanding the New Jersey Dyslexia Handbook, enabling educators to enhance early literacy outcomes and effectively support reading interventions for students struggling with dyslexia.

• Audience: Targeted stakeholder teams include administrators, teachers, special education professionals, and other educational staff from various school districts across New Jersey.

• Content: Each session is designed to cover crucial topics that implement best practices in teaching struggling readers, particularly those identified with dyslexia, ensuring they receive the necessary support to succeed academically.

Webinar Session 3 Focus

• The third session will include a thorough review of the intervention strategies outlined in the handbook and the assistive technology recommendations available for educators.

• It emphasizes the alignment of interventions with research-based practices, ensuring effective implementation of reading strategies tailored to the needs of dyslexic students.

Reading Comprehension Explained

• Components: Reading comprehension comprises key skills essential for understanding text, which include:

• Word recognition/decoding: The ability to quickly and accurately recognize written words, fundamental for independent reading.

• Language comprehension: The capacity to understand the meaning of words and sentences in context, crucial for interpreting texts.

• Simple View of Reading: This model posits that both word recognition and language comprehension are necessary and interdependent for effective reading. It highlights that mastering both elements leads to greater literacy success.

• Scarborough's Reading Rope: This conceptual framework illustrates how various reading skills are intertwined and develop over time, showing that proficient reading requires a combination of cognitive, linguistic, and contextual skills.

Effective Intervention Strategies

• Consensus on Instruction: Research indicates that direct, systematic, and sequential instruction focusing on language structure is vital for effective literacy education.

• Structured Literacy:

• Definition: Structured Literacy refers to explicit, systematic, cumulative, and multimodal instruction, designed to support diverse learning needs.

• Components: Key components include:

  • Phonology (understanding the sound system)

  • Orthography (knowledge of spelling patterns)

  • Sound-symbol association (mapping sounds to letters)

  • Grammar (understanding syntax and sentence structure)

  • Morphology (study of word parts and meanings)

  • Semantics (the meanings and relationships of words)

  • Discourse organization (understanding text structures and genres)

• Multimodal Instruction: This approach engages various sensory modalities (visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic), accommodating different learning styles and promoting deeper understanding.

Comprehensive Scope and Sequence

• Establishing a logical skill sequence is essential for delivering effective literacy instruction throughout the academic year, ensuring continuity and depth in learning.

• Resources:

• The Dyslexia Handbook provides a detailed chart outlining the scope and sequence of instruction, aligning practices with state standards.

• The NJTSS sample phonics scope and sequence offers additional insights for educators on implementing phonics effectively in instruction.

Instructional Principles

• Modeling Instruction: Educators are encouraged to demonstrate tasks clearly before expecting learner execution, creating a model for students to follow.

• Explicit Instruction: Key concepts should be taught clearly through a structured “I do, we do, you do” approach, facilitating gradual release of responsibility to students.

• Engagement: It’s crucial to ensure meaningful interactions between students and educators while monitoring student participation actively to maximize learning opportunities.

• Practice Opportunities: Providing students with repeated practice along with corrective feedback is vital to taking mastery of skills seriously.

• Performance Criteria: Students should demonstrate high performance levels in activities before concluding the intervention, ensuring they have met set expectations.

Tiered Instruction and Support

• NJTSS Approach: The New Jersey Tiered System of Supports (NJTSS) incorporates a framework for tiered instruction:

• Tier 1: Core instruction available for all students in the classroom.

• Tier 2: Targeted small-group interventions for students identified as needing more personalized assistance.

• Tier 3: Intensive interventions provided to students requiring substantial support beyond Tier 2.

• Monitoring Progress: Continuous progress monitoring is essential. Intervention services should persist until fluency and mastery are demonstrated, ensuring students receive ongoing support throughout their learning journey.

Accommodations and Modifications

• Accommodations: Adjustments to instructional methods or assessments that do not change the content, such as extended time for completion of reading exams, aimed to support diverse needs of students.

• Modifications: Significant alterations to content or expectations, for instance, using simplified texts or reducing the amount of required reading for students to ensure access to the curriculum.

• Purpose: The ultimate goal of both accommodations and modifications is to ensure that students with dyslexia have equal access to the curriculum while receiving intense instruction to develop their skills effectively.

Assistive Technology (AT)

• Definition: Assistive Technology encompasses a variety of tools and products that support and enhance the capabilities of students with disabilities, particularly in reading and writing.

• Examples:

• Text-to-speech software that assists students in reading written material aloud.

• Speech-to-text technology that aids students with writing by converting spoken words into written text.

• Recording devices that help students create notes for study and comprehension purposes.

Practical Applications

• Evaluation Tools: Assessment tools such as the Structured Literacy Intervention Checklist and the NJTSS Intervention Analysis Tool are included in the handbook for program evaluation.

• Implementing Changes: The series encourages participants to analyze existing practices and improve intervention strategies within their schools effectively and systematically.

Conclusion

• Emphasizing the importance of ongoing professional development for educators focusing on literacy and dyslexia is critical to improving student outcomes.

• Educators are encouraged to take part in future sessions to enrich their knowledge and skills related to effective literacy practices and intervention strategies that support struggling readers.