If you would like to have this newsletter or other comments read to you, you could download a Deskbot character from Deskbot.com. Once downloaded, you would highlight the text that you wanted read, then right click on the highlighted text and it will be read to you.
If you preferred Microsoft Reader, you could download Microsoft Reader from the Microsoft website. Once downloaded, you would create an e-book with the tools that would now be within Microsoft Word and it would be read to you.
The next newsletter will contain some WONDERFUL assistive technology information from the Alabama Educational Technology Conference.
If you have an idea or would like to submit an article to the newsletter, please send your request to teacherCA@aol.com, Mary Stowe.
Thank you!
Thursday, June 26, 2008
ALIDA Newsletter for June 30, 2008
Alabama Chapter of the International Dyslexia Association ALIDA News June 30, 2008
Volume 4, Issue 1
President Denise Gibbs
Vice President Marcia Ramsey
Secretary Angie Hood
Treasurer Laura Promer
Board Members Lydia Alexander (Madison), Jerry Burfitt (Madison), Barbara Combs (Madison), Angelo Cope (Birmingham), Jo Frances Findlay (Tuscaloosa), Jill Hall (Birmingham), Hettie Johnson (Hoover), Joan Keagy (Birmingham), Nancy Lindsey (Demopolis), Linda Shatz (Florence), Dwain Strickland (St. Stephens), Paula Williams (Huntsville),
Newsletter Editor Mary Murray Stowe
ALIDA Phone Number: 256-551-1442
O-G Trainings: Huntsville and Montgomery This Summer Greengate School sponsored an Orton-Gillingham Associate Training in Huntsville beginning May 27 through June 5th, in-cluding Saturday and Sunday afternoon. Each session will be held at Greengate School. This course was available to the first 30 applicants. Any additional information can be found on the Greengate School website. Another Associate Level Orton-Gilligham Training will be held this summer, July 21-25 and 28-30, then two days TBA in September. This training is sponsored by Alabama Scottish Rite Foundation and will be held at the Montgomery Scottish Rite Masonic Cen-ter. Marcia P. Mann, M.A., CCC/SLP-F/AOGPE will teach this training. Marcia provided a two day training at the beginning of April in Huntsville. For further information regarding this Participants in the O-G Training in October 2007 in Alabaster. opportunity, please go to
http:// www.hettiejohnson.com. In October 2007, ALIDA sponsored an O-G Foundations Course, taught by O-G Fellow William Van-Cleave from South Carolina. As a result of this course, twenty teachers, parents, tutors, as well as one physician, have been introduced to the Orton-Gillingham approach! Participants came from as far away as Tampa, Florida, with others coming from Auburn, Tuscaloosa, Prattville, Columbi-ana, Ashville, Shelby and Jefferson Coun-ties. The two weeks included a definite mix-ture of work and fun, with participants enjoying the chance to get to know each other in an educa-tional and stimulating experience!
Two Day O-G Workshop with Marcia Mann, April 4 and 5, 2008 Huntsville, AL
On April 4th and 5th, Marcia Mann provided an Orton-Gillingham Training in Madison, AL. The Madi-son City School System most kindly provided their meeting room for the train-ing. While all of the par-ticipants worked hard for two days, much fun was had in learning and practicing of the principles and concepts taught. Marcia provided information re-garding Oral Language Development, Phonology, Grammar and Morphology. Some of the participants were able to enjoy a “colleagueial” dinner with Marcia as well.
Page 2 Central Alabama Dyslexia Support Group (Submitted by Krista Guy)
Krista Guy: “My goal as a parent with a dyslexic son is to be an ear, a shoulder, a resource and most of all, let other parents know they are not alone.” The Central Alabama Dyslexia Support Group was co-founded in August 2007 by Krista Guy and Hettie John-son. The group meets at the Hoover Library during the school year, usually on the last Thursday of the month from 12:00pm to 1:00pm, with plans to have one to two evening meetings a year. The support group is a non-profit organization; meetings are free and there is no cost for membership. Krista Guy: In explaining my purpose in founding this group, I have simply said that, “I have a son with dyslexia and, after searching throughout the Birmingham area to find help for my son, believed that parents with dyslexic children needed an easier way to find resources. Dyslexia is an important challenge for fami-lies as well as for our educa-tional system. I knew some-one had to be there to help these families.” With encouragement, Hettie Johnson and I founded this support group. Hettie was our first speaker. We have seen that this group was needed as we see 10 to 20 parents, educators, and peo-ple with dyslexia attend our meetings. We have had sev-eral wonderful speakers throughout this school year. Mary Stowe, M.Ed., Jack Laval-let, Computer Specialist, and Peggy Walker, RN, an adult who overcame dyslexia. Mayor Tony Petelos is speak-ing on April 22nd and Hettie Johnson will continue an ear-lier presentation on multisen-sory teaching strategies on May 15th. Since starting the group I get from 3 to 8 e-mails a week from parents needing advice and help for their chil-dren. I always invite them to our next meeting and give them our website address: www.centralaldyslexicsupport .com. With their names on our e-mail list, we can send out monthly information.
Meeting with Hoover Mayor Petelos for Dyslexia Awareness Month (Submitted by Hettie Johnson) In October of 2007, Hettie Johnson, Krista Guy and Lau-ren Lambert met with Hoover Mayor Tony Petelos as part of the Dyslexia Awareness Month. Mayor Petelos signed a proclamation for the city of Hoover to acknowledge this designation. He listened most intently to our information and the need for more dissimination of information about dyslexia and its symp-toms. Mayor Petelos spoke to the Central Alabama Dyslexia Support Group at its April meeting. Mayor Petelos was quite open about the difficul-ties that he experienced in school. He was one of five children whose parents had moved to the United States from Greece. His father died when he was young and he was raised by his mother who did not speak English. All of the children are successful citizens today due to the val-ues instilled by their mother and shaped by experiences from childhood.
In Memory of Barbara Cerny:
The North Alabama dyslexia com-munity recently lost a valued and dedicated advocate, diagnostician and interventionist. As with many people in the field of dyslexia, Barbara Cerny pursued Orton-Gillingham training out of necessity – to help her own dyslexic children. Marsha Ramsey, current president of ALIDA, shared the following: “ Barbara attended OG training in Atlanta in 2000 and began putting her knowledge to use immediately. True to her character, Barbara took her talents beyond her own family and began helping many dyslexic children throughout the community. Barbara was a tremendous observer and advocate of children. Her in-sightful evaluations helped students and their parents understand their strengths and challenges and the most effective means of interven-tion. Barbara was one of the foun-ders of our state branch of the Inter-national Dyslexia Association and served us well for several years. Barbara touched many people with her selfless dedication to dyslexic children. We will all greatly miss her positive nature and gentle humor.”
Memorial donations, which will go to a home school special needs program and the Scottish Rite Foundation, can be sent to: The Barbara Cerny Dyslexia Fund C/O Covenant Christian Academy 926 Weatherly Road, S.E. Huntsville, Al. 35803
If you have any information that you would like to sub-mit to the ALIDA Newsletter, please send it as an at-tachment to Mary Stowe at teacherCA@aol.com
Page 3 Individual Accommodations: Leveling the Playing Field While Acquiring Independence (Submitted by Mary Murray Stowe)
In March, Mary Stowe provided this workshop to the monthly meeting of the Central Alabama Dyslexia Support Group. Information was given to assist parents and children in selecting and developing useful accommodations for successful learning opportunities in school. Children need to understand their strengths and weaknesses. Further, they need to understand that, as everyone, they will have skills at which they excel but also those at which they do not. Children need to be encouraged to use their strengths to assist in overcoming their areas of weakness. An example was provided using multisensory instructional techniques that were discussed at the previous support group meeting by Hettie Johnson. If your child is interested in baseball, you might throw a baseball back and forth for each letter in a spelling word. If your child enjoys acting out stories or drama, you might act out an event in history that they need to comprehend for their school work. The notion is to use visual, auditory, kinesthetic and tactile tech-niques to register the information into their child’s brain for later retrieval. This will provide pathways for children to recall the necessary information when it is required. Choosing appropriate accommodations is an important aspect of their school work. In knowing strength areas, the parent, child and teacher can implement appropriate accommodations to “level the playing the field” within the regular education class- room. It is important to understand the difference between accommodations and modifications. Most children with identified disabilities will use accommodations within the classroom and accommodations do not “modify” or change the material that the child must accomplish. A modification will be used for children who are severely and profoundly disabled and will change the content that the student must accomplish. Be sure to match children’s strengths and need areas with appropriate accommodations. Tindal and Fuchs (1999) indicate that “test accommodations include changes in presentation, response, setting and/or scheduling that allow students with disabilities full access to materials including an opportunity to demonstrate what they know and what they can do on large-scale assessments.” Accommodations can apply to the presenta-tion of information as well. Children will receive direct instruction within the regular education classroom, but then the material might be additionally presented in an alter-nate format to ensure comprehension and mastery of that material. Typically, ex-tended time is required to complete assignments or assessments in order for the child to have sufficient time to read, comprehend and then produce the required response. Children might need tests read to them or read through a computer text to speech pro-gram if they struggle with decoding yet have excellent listening skills. If the child struggles with written output of material but possesses strong verbal expression, oral responses might be an acceptable accommodation for test responses. If a quiet setting is required to maximize attention to the task at hand, that situation could be provided for test-taking situations. These are but a few examples of possible accommodations. “The underlying principle here is that accommodations are tools and procedures that level the playing field for students with disabilities. Without them, these students would be limited in their ability to demonstrate what they have learned, compromis-ing our ability to know how they compare to their age and grade level peers and what specific instructional needs they have as they progress through the general education curriculum (pg. 3 Horowitz 2008).” In various workshops presented through the International Dyslexia Association and the Learning Disabili-ties Association of America, it has been noted by speakers that notes as to accommodations received over the school career of the child will be important when approaching college entrance assessments and post-secondary accommodations. It is important for parents and children to review accommodations included in their school-based IEPs as well as noting accommodations that might be successful at home when working on school work.
Works Cited:
Horowitz Ed.D, Sheldon, “No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Accommodations: Is There a Connection?”, National Center for Learning Disabilities: LD Essentials, Spring/Summer 2008, p. 3
Tindal, G., & Fuchs, L. (1999). A summary of research on test changes: An empirical basis for defining accommodations. Lexington, KY: Mid-South Regional Resource Center.
Useful Publications:
“LD Essentials”, a newsletter from the National Center for Learning Disabilities, published quarterly.
Rewards & Roadblocks: How Special Education Students are Faring Under No Child Left Behind from the National Center for Learning Disabilities in 2007; www.LD.org
State Testing Accommodations: A Look at Their Value and Validity from the National Center for Learning Disabilities in 2007; www.LD.org
NCLB and IDEA: What Parents of Students with Disabilities Need to Know & Do from the National Center on Educational Outcomes in August 2006; http://www.nceo.info
IDA 59th Annual Conference Seattle, Washington October 29 to November 1, 2008 We’re on the WEB at: http:// health.groups.yahoo.com/ group/AL_IDA/
Useful Hint: If you have difficulty reading fluently, why not download a text to speech program at wwww.Deskbot.com and use it with online novels at www.fullbooks.com Both websites provide free downloads. Kids will love using Deskbot, because a variety of characters can be chosen to read the text.
Volume 4, Issue 1
President Denise Gibbs
Vice President Marcia Ramsey
Secretary Angie Hood
Treasurer Laura Promer
Board Members Lydia Alexander (Madison), Jerry Burfitt (Madison), Barbara Combs (Madison), Angelo Cope (Birmingham), Jo Frances Findlay (Tuscaloosa), Jill Hall (Birmingham), Hettie Johnson (Hoover), Joan Keagy (Birmingham), Nancy Lindsey (Demopolis), Linda Shatz (Florence), Dwain Strickland (St. Stephens), Paula Williams (Huntsville),
Newsletter Editor Mary Murray Stowe
ALIDA Phone Number: 256-551-1442
O-G Trainings: Huntsville and Montgomery This Summer Greengate School sponsored an Orton-Gillingham Associate Training in Huntsville beginning May 27 through June 5th, in-cluding Saturday and Sunday afternoon. Each session will be held at Greengate School. This course was available to the first 30 applicants. Any additional information can be found on the Greengate School website. Another Associate Level Orton-Gilligham Training will be held this summer, July 21-25 and 28-30, then two days TBA in September. This training is sponsored by Alabama Scottish Rite Foundation and will be held at the Montgomery Scottish Rite Masonic Cen-ter. Marcia P. Mann, M.A., CCC/SLP-F/AOGPE will teach this training. Marcia provided a two day training at the beginning of April in Huntsville. For further information regarding this Participants in the O-G Training in October 2007 in Alabaster. opportunity, please go to
http:// www.hettiejohnson.com. In October 2007, ALIDA sponsored an O-G Foundations Course, taught by O-G Fellow William Van-Cleave from South Carolina. As a result of this course, twenty teachers, parents, tutors, as well as one physician, have been introduced to the Orton-Gillingham approach! Participants came from as far away as Tampa, Florida, with others coming from Auburn, Tuscaloosa, Prattville, Columbi-ana, Ashville, Shelby and Jefferson Coun-ties. The two weeks included a definite mix-ture of work and fun, with participants enjoying the chance to get to know each other in an educa-tional and stimulating experience!
Two Day O-G Workshop with Marcia Mann, April 4 and 5, 2008 Huntsville, AL
On April 4th and 5th, Marcia Mann provided an Orton-Gillingham Training in Madison, AL. The Madi-son City School System most kindly provided their meeting room for the train-ing. While all of the par-ticipants worked hard for two days, much fun was had in learning and practicing of the principles and concepts taught. Marcia provided information re-garding Oral Language Development, Phonology, Grammar and Morphology. Some of the participants were able to enjoy a “colleagueial” dinner with Marcia as well.
Page 2 Central Alabama Dyslexia Support Group (Submitted by Krista Guy)
Krista Guy: “My goal as a parent with a dyslexic son is to be an ear, a shoulder, a resource and most of all, let other parents know they are not alone.” The Central Alabama Dyslexia Support Group was co-founded in August 2007 by Krista Guy and Hettie John-son. The group meets at the Hoover Library during the school year, usually on the last Thursday of the month from 12:00pm to 1:00pm, with plans to have one to two evening meetings a year. The support group is a non-profit organization; meetings are free and there is no cost for membership. Krista Guy: In explaining my purpose in founding this group, I have simply said that, “I have a son with dyslexia and, after searching throughout the Birmingham area to find help for my son, believed that parents with dyslexic children needed an easier way to find resources. Dyslexia is an important challenge for fami-lies as well as for our educa-tional system. I knew some-one had to be there to help these families.” With encouragement, Hettie Johnson and I founded this support group. Hettie was our first speaker. We have seen that this group was needed as we see 10 to 20 parents, educators, and peo-ple with dyslexia attend our meetings. We have had sev-eral wonderful speakers throughout this school year. Mary Stowe, M.Ed., Jack Laval-let, Computer Specialist, and Peggy Walker, RN, an adult who overcame dyslexia. Mayor Tony Petelos is speak-ing on April 22nd and Hettie Johnson will continue an ear-lier presentation on multisen-sory teaching strategies on May 15th. Since starting the group I get from 3 to 8 e-mails a week from parents needing advice and help for their chil-dren. I always invite them to our next meeting and give them our website address: www.centralaldyslexicsupport .com. With their names on our e-mail list, we can send out monthly information.
Meeting with Hoover Mayor Petelos for Dyslexia Awareness Month (Submitted by Hettie Johnson) In October of 2007, Hettie Johnson, Krista Guy and Lau-ren Lambert met with Hoover Mayor Tony Petelos as part of the Dyslexia Awareness Month. Mayor Petelos signed a proclamation for the city of Hoover to acknowledge this designation. He listened most intently to our information and the need for more dissimination of information about dyslexia and its symp-toms. Mayor Petelos spoke to the Central Alabama Dyslexia Support Group at its April meeting. Mayor Petelos was quite open about the difficul-ties that he experienced in school. He was one of five children whose parents had moved to the United States from Greece. His father died when he was young and he was raised by his mother who did not speak English. All of the children are successful citizens today due to the val-ues instilled by their mother and shaped by experiences from childhood.
In Memory of Barbara Cerny:
The North Alabama dyslexia com-munity recently lost a valued and dedicated advocate, diagnostician and interventionist. As with many people in the field of dyslexia, Barbara Cerny pursued Orton-Gillingham training out of necessity – to help her own dyslexic children. Marsha Ramsey, current president of ALIDA, shared the following: “ Barbara attended OG training in Atlanta in 2000 and began putting her knowledge to use immediately. True to her character, Barbara took her talents beyond her own family and began helping many dyslexic children throughout the community. Barbara was a tremendous observer and advocate of children. Her in-sightful evaluations helped students and their parents understand their strengths and challenges and the most effective means of interven-tion. Barbara was one of the foun-ders of our state branch of the Inter-national Dyslexia Association and served us well for several years. Barbara touched many people with her selfless dedication to dyslexic children. We will all greatly miss her positive nature and gentle humor.”
Memorial donations, which will go to a home school special needs program and the Scottish Rite Foundation, can be sent to: The Barbara Cerny Dyslexia Fund C/O Covenant Christian Academy 926 Weatherly Road, S.E. Huntsville, Al. 35803
If you have any information that you would like to sub-mit to the ALIDA Newsletter, please send it as an at-tachment to Mary Stowe at teacherCA@aol.com
Page 3 Individual Accommodations: Leveling the Playing Field While Acquiring Independence (Submitted by Mary Murray Stowe)
In March, Mary Stowe provided this workshop to the monthly meeting of the Central Alabama Dyslexia Support Group. Information was given to assist parents and children in selecting and developing useful accommodations for successful learning opportunities in school. Children need to understand their strengths and weaknesses. Further, they need to understand that, as everyone, they will have skills at which they excel but also those at which they do not. Children need to be encouraged to use their strengths to assist in overcoming their areas of weakness. An example was provided using multisensory instructional techniques that were discussed at the previous support group meeting by Hettie Johnson. If your child is interested in baseball, you might throw a baseball back and forth for each letter in a spelling word. If your child enjoys acting out stories or drama, you might act out an event in history that they need to comprehend for their school work. The notion is to use visual, auditory, kinesthetic and tactile tech-niques to register the information into their child’s brain for later retrieval. This will provide pathways for children to recall the necessary information when it is required. Choosing appropriate accommodations is an important aspect of their school work. In knowing strength areas, the parent, child and teacher can implement appropriate accommodations to “level the playing the field” within the regular education class- room. It is important to understand the difference between accommodations and modifications. Most children with identified disabilities will use accommodations within the classroom and accommodations do not “modify” or change the material that the child must accomplish. A modification will be used for children who are severely and profoundly disabled and will change the content that the student must accomplish. Be sure to match children’s strengths and need areas with appropriate accommodations. Tindal and Fuchs (1999) indicate that “test accommodations include changes in presentation, response, setting and/or scheduling that allow students with disabilities full access to materials including an opportunity to demonstrate what they know and what they can do on large-scale assessments.” Accommodations can apply to the presenta-tion of information as well. Children will receive direct instruction within the regular education classroom, but then the material might be additionally presented in an alter-nate format to ensure comprehension and mastery of that material. Typically, ex-tended time is required to complete assignments or assessments in order for the child to have sufficient time to read, comprehend and then produce the required response. Children might need tests read to them or read through a computer text to speech pro-gram if they struggle with decoding yet have excellent listening skills. If the child struggles with written output of material but possesses strong verbal expression, oral responses might be an acceptable accommodation for test responses. If a quiet setting is required to maximize attention to the task at hand, that situation could be provided for test-taking situations. These are but a few examples of possible accommodations. “The underlying principle here is that accommodations are tools and procedures that level the playing field for students with disabilities. Without them, these students would be limited in their ability to demonstrate what they have learned, compromis-ing our ability to know how they compare to their age and grade level peers and what specific instructional needs they have as they progress through the general education curriculum (pg. 3 Horowitz 2008).” In various workshops presented through the International Dyslexia Association and the Learning Disabili-ties Association of America, it has been noted by speakers that notes as to accommodations received over the school career of the child will be important when approaching college entrance assessments and post-secondary accommodations. It is important for parents and children to review accommodations included in their school-based IEPs as well as noting accommodations that might be successful at home when working on school work.
Works Cited:
Horowitz Ed.D, Sheldon, “No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Accommodations: Is There a Connection?”, National Center for Learning Disabilities: LD Essentials, Spring/Summer 2008, p. 3
Tindal, G., & Fuchs, L. (1999). A summary of research on test changes: An empirical basis for defining accommodations. Lexington, KY: Mid-South Regional Resource Center.
Useful Publications:
“LD Essentials”, a newsletter from the National Center for Learning Disabilities, published quarterly.
Rewards & Roadblocks: How Special Education Students are Faring Under No Child Left Behind from the National Center for Learning Disabilities in 2007; www.LD.org
State Testing Accommodations: A Look at Their Value and Validity from the National Center for Learning Disabilities in 2007; www.LD.org
NCLB and IDEA: What Parents of Students with Disabilities Need to Know & Do from the National Center on Educational Outcomes in August 2006; http://www.nceo.info
IDA 59th Annual Conference Seattle, Washington October 29 to November 1, 2008 We’re on the WEB at: http:// health.groups.yahoo.com/ group/AL_IDA/
Useful Hint: If you have difficulty reading fluently, why not download a text to speech program at wwww.Deskbot.com and use it with online novels at www.fullbooks.com Both websites provide free downloads. Kids will love using Deskbot, because a variety of characters can be chosen to read the text.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Alabama Chapter of the International Dyslexia Association
We will post future newsletters and additional information to this site. Free downloads of text to speech programs can be used to read the newsletters or other information for those that require this feature.
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