2024 CASE Conference
Location: Savannah Convention Center, Savannah, GA
Date: November 6-8, 2024
Booth Number: 90
Presentation Date: November 6, 2024, 9:00am – 11:30am
Presenter: JENNIFER THOMPSON, IRR Instructional Coordinator, Services for Exceptional Children, Fulton County School District
Presentation Title: Scaling Up a District-Wide Literacy Intervention: Building Structures to Support Special Ed Teachers to Implement with Fidelity & Close Gaps
Presentation Description: Beginning in 2017, Fulton County Schools, a district of 90,000 students, began scaling up a district-wide literacy initiative to respond to the lack of consistent reading instruction by their special educators. The district selected a program focused on developing the underlying sensory-cognitive functions students need in order to learn to read. Over time, and through the pandemic, the district created structures in real-time in response to the needs of students, teachers, and district leadership that have resulted in identifiable changes in the performance of special education student’s reading scores, including in the district’s most struggling schools.
This presentation will outline why Fulton County determined they needed to change their literacy instructional practices for special education students, what they wanted from a literacy professional development provider, who they identified as the necessary stakeholders and the way they supported them in their roles, and how the implementation has continued to evolve from the initial design. Data will be shared showing the positive growth Fulton County’s special education students have made in closing the reading gap with their general education peers.
IDA Arizona Webinar Series
Dates: Saturday, November 16, 2024
Time: 10 AM MST
Presenter: Erika Blackwell, Regional Director of Development for Lindamood-Bell for School
Presentation Title: Closing the Comprehension Gap in the Science of Reading
Presentation Description: To effectively close academic gaps, students must comprehend what they read. Yet many structured literacy approaches treat comprehension as the natural by-product of fluency instead of an essential component of literacy to be developed explicitly, sequentially, and cumulatively. Creating mental images for language (concept imagery) is foundational to reading and listening comprehension. Imagery underlies vocabulary development, acquisition of background knowledge, verbal and written expression, and critical thinking. This presentation will discuss Dual Coding Theory (DCT) as a leading theory of cognition providing a unified account of all aspects of reading under a common set of principles. Participants will gain an understanding of the imagery-language connection as an underlying sensory-cognitive function for students to comprehend language to meet their learning potential. An overview of the Visualizing and Verbalizing®️ program, intentional use of sensory stimulating language, and engaging students in an active learning process through Socratic questioning will be introduced to give participants insight into developing concept imagery.
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