The Reading League Florida

TRL-FL hosts Linda Diamond, author of the Teaching Reading Sourcebook.  In this session, Dr. Diamond will describe evidence-based instructional methods for teaching vocabulary and address the decision-making necessary to determine when and how to teach vocabulary that will appear in complex texts. Participants will see a decision tree useful for planning whether to pre-teach academic vocabulary, teach at point of appearance, and/or use a challenging word for discussion after reading a complex text. Register Here

Because of their neurocognitive and emotional vulnerabilities, children and adolescents with Learning Disabilities and/or ADHD are particularly at risk for stress-related disorders and reactions. Neuroscience explains the problem and gives us the knowledge we need to turn this situation around. Dr. Schultz will present research, clinical observations, case studies and anecdotal evidence to explain why children and adolescents with LD and/or ADHD (and other special needs) have a lower threshold for stress due to their repeated experiences with failure.

Beth Lang will introduce us to Precision Teaching. The ideas shared can be used to support educators' use of measurement to more sensitively guide decisions in reading instruction and practice.

Dyslexia is one of the most studied cognitive phenomena in educational and psychological research. A group of researchers has recently completed an analysis of more than 50 studies over the past 40 years and will be sharing their results. The findings and presentation will touch on factors like the student characteristics and intervention characteristics (dosage, instructional components, multisensory, group size) that affect outcomes. Please join us for Dr. Colby Hall and colleagues Karen Kehoe, and Katlynn Dahl-Leonard.

Now that all Florida districts are using computer adaptive tests of reading for all Pre-K through 2nd grade students, it's more important than ever for educators to learn about the research supported uses of these assessments. Dr. Nathan Clemens has conducted many studies on coputer adaptive reading tests like Star Reading and Star Early Literacy and will review the findings.