38th Annual LDA-IA Conference: “Survival Guide for Students with Learning Disabilities”...October 2009
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Sunday, Oct. 25
DAVE CARSON— Author of Survival Guide for College-Bound L.D. Students
Dave writes a strong, useful guidebook for any LD student, at any level who is motivated to succeed. Using the ideas from his book, Carson hopes high school students learn some of the lessons he learned without having to go through the same painful, frustrating process. He gives hope to the LD student and offers practical and effective coping methods. http://www.dcarsonldcoach.com
Monday, Oct. 26
Dr. Jeanne Shay Schumm—University of Miami, Florida
Dr. Schumm teaches courses in reading and inclusion of students with disabilities in the general education classroom. She also serves as Professor-in-Residence at Henry S. West Laboratory School where she supervises student teachers and directs Miami STARS, a tutorial program for struggling readers. She is the author or editor of numerous books including School Power: Study Skills Strategies for Succeeding in School, How to Help Your Child With Homework, Reading Assessment and Instruction for All Learners, Teaching Students Who Are Exceptional, Diverse, and At Risk in the General Education Classroom (published by Allyn and Bacon and soon in its 5th edition). Dr. Schumm has co-authored over 75 professional articles and book chapters. Her research focuses on early prevention of reading difficulties, differentiated instruction, and teacher education in highly diverse classrooms.
Tuesday, Oct. 27
Dr. Martha S. Burns—Northwestern University
Dr. Burns serves on the faculty of Northwestern University, department of communication sciences and disorders, and served on the medical staff of Evanston-Northwestern Hospital for 30 years. She is an ASHA Fellow and has received honors from Northwestern University, Evanston Hospital Corporation, the American Speech Language Hearing Foundation and St. Xavier University. She is the author of a book on aphasia, right hemisphere dysfunction, the test Burns Brief Inventory of Communication and Cognition (published by The Psychological Corporation) and has published over 100 peer reviewed articles and book chapters on the brain and language.
SESSION DESCRIPTIONS- Sunday, October 25
2:00-3:00 PM - Learning Disabilities Simulation
What is it like to have dyslexia? How does it affect your daily life? This learning disabilities simulation lets participants experience some of the challenges and frustrations faced by people with this language-based learning disability. The simulation consists of six learning stations that present different language-related learning tasks encountered in the classroom or workplace: problems with 1) beginning reading; 2) auditory figure-ground discrimination; 3) visual-motor and writing; 4) fine motor and writing; 5) visual perception and processing; and 5) hearing. When all stations have been completed, participants come together for a general debriefing led by the facilitator.
3:00-4:00 PM - Book Talks
Participate in or observe one of these book discussions:
Survival Guide for College-Bound LD Students by Dave Carson
School Power Jeanne Shay Schumm
Disabled Thoughts by Steven Pritchard
It is not necessary to have read the books before the session. Books will be available for purchase at the conference.
4:15-5:30 PM - Small Group Sessions
-Surviving Transition
Students in the middle school and high school will tell you that making the change from one level to another can be not only challenging but also daunting. The purpose behind transition planning is to help students to develop strategies and goals that make this change in levels more successful. In our session we hope to provide real world experiences in terms of what two special education teachers, one middle school and one high school, do to help their students make a successful transition to the next level. The focus will be on successful transition practices and procedures in middle school and high school.
-Survival Guide for the Rights of Students with Learning Disabilities
Legal efforts to challenge AEA policies and practices that threaten to disenfranchise students with learning disabilities will be discussed.
-Survival Guide for Parents of Students with Learning Disabilities
A panel of parents will share success tips in raising students with learning disabilities. Questions and discussion will be encouraged.
-ADA Amendments Act of 2008 and Section 504
This presentation will provide an overview of the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, its effect on Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and its implications for K-12 education.
The presentation will include a hands-on activity and brief question and answer session.
5:30-6:00 PM – Hospitality Room
6:00-6:45 PM – Dinner and Entertainment by Christopher Williams, Nashville Recording Artist
7:00-8:00 PM - KEYNOTE: Dave Carson - Surviving Life with a Learning Disability
The presenter learned at the age of 25 that he has a learning disability. These disabilities hampered his ability to excel in the classroom and also his belief in himself. He flunked out of three schools before finally graduating from college. Now that he has finished college and has successfully completed two further diplomas, he can see where he went wrong when he first attempted to progress through school. The presenter’s perspective is genuine and his goal sincere; he truly want to help young adults who are heading to college, assisting them in succeeding and believing in themselves. In this session, the presenter will discuss his life and personal journey in completing college. Using real life experiences and information from his book, Survival Guide for College-Bound LD Students, the presenter will review the skills and coping strategies it takes for youth and young adults to succeed in college.
SESSION DESCRIPTIONS- Monday, October 26
8:30-11:30 AM:KEYNOTE-Survival Guide for Students with Learning Disabilities, Dr. Jeanne Shay Schumm Presentation Powerpoints
The reality television program, Survivor, offers contestants challenges of fortitude, problem solving, collaboration, skillfulness, and determination. Sound familiar? Today’s teaching professionals are assuming considerably more responsibility teaching reading to students with an every widening range of individual needs. Teachers identify students with reading and learning disabilities as their greatest challenges and often their greatest rewards when it all finally clicks. For many, challenges have become even more formidable given the advent of Response to Intervention.
The presentation will begin with a discussion of the challenges we face in providing optimal instruction in teaching students with reading and learning disabilities. Particular attention will be paid to the promises and potential pitfalls we face in implementing Response to Intervention. The presentation will continue with an overview of a “Survival Kit” describing research-based tools and strategies we have found to be most effective in my work and the work of my colleagues at University of Miami in our highly diverse urban school district, Miami-Dade County. For two decades we have been in search of research-based practices that are desirable in terms of student outcomes and feasible in terms of the reality of challenges in contemporary classrooms. The tools and strategies are drawn from two of our textbooks: Teaching Students Who Are Exceptional, Diverse, and at Risk in the General Education Classroom (Vaughn, Bos, & Schumm, Allyn & Bacon, 2010) and Reading Assessment and Instruction for All Learners (Schumm, Guilford Press, 2006). Our goal in our “Survival Kit” is not only to help our fellow professionals to “survive,” but to flourish knowing that we have made a difference in the lives of youngsters who struggle in learning to read and write.
12:30-3:30 PM: Two Concurrent Sessions
-Bill of Rights Survival Guide for Students with LD
A review of the rights afforded to individuals with Learning Disabilities under the current IDEA.
-Co-Teaching Survival Guide for Secondary Students with LD
With 15 years of successful co-teaching experience, the presenters will share their co-teaching practices. Their presentation will focus on tips and strategies for successful co-teaching. Specific lessons involving both teachers delivering whole class instruction will highlight the presentation.
-Fluency Solutions Survival Guide for Students with LD
Learn how to combine the research-proven strategies of teacher modeling, repeated reading and progress monitoring into a single, powerful strategy to accelerate the reading achievement of Title I, special education, ELL and mainstream students. This session describes Read Naturally, but the strategies can be used with any classroom reading material.
-IEP Survival Guide
An array of ideas to help parents, teachers, and students survive and benefit from the IEP process. This presentation will include suggestions on how to develop IEPs that address the needs of the student and provide guidance for the special education service providers and information for parents. We will review how each section of an IEP should be addressed and how parents, teachers, and students can make contributions during the IEP process that will help in the development of an appropriate and effective IEP.
-Parents’ Survival Guide for Students with LD
A panel of parents will share success tips in raising students with learning disabilities. Questions and discussion will be encouraged.
-Psychologist's Survival Guide for Students with Mental Health and Behavior Issues
An estimated 1 in 5 children and adolescents have a mental health disorder. For many these disorders impact academic progress and interpersonal relationships at school. This presentation will provide a brief overview of some of mental health disorders that occur in childhood and adolescence, their impact on school performance, and school-based supports to increase the likelihood of student success. Strategies for empowering students with mental health and behavioral issues will also be provided.
-Secondary Resource Teacher’s Survival Guide for Students with LD
This school year, are you feeling like you are stranded on a desert island with ideas for communicating with students, parents and teachers running dry, student organizational skills crashing and burning and student time management skills going up in smoke? If you are starving for ideas to perk-up, start-up or completely revamp your service delivery to students with LD please come off the desert island and check-into this seminar where we hope you will leave feeling refreshed and recharged as if you have been to a luxury resort! A famous English playwright John Heywood said, “Many hands make light work.” Please bring any ideas you may have tucked away in your teacher knapsack to share with others. See you soon!
-Survival for Adolescents and College Students with Memory and/or Organizational Problems
This presentation will focus on how adolescents and college students with memory/organization problems can adapt study methods to improve academic progress. There will also be a review of the type of accommodations some of these students need. We will also focus on the type of evaluation needed to verify accommodation requirement.
-Survival Guide for Basic Decoding Skills Using CLOVER
CLOVER is an acronym representing the six most commonly used vowel patterns in the English language. VoWac teaches students to focus on the vowels when decoding a word. Once they understand the common patterns that exist, the English language becomes quite manageable and user friendly. Participants will discover how to CLOVER label words. Learning the mechanics and construction of the English language will develop a strong understanding of how and why we spell and pronounce words the way we do.
-Survival Guide of Ideas and Strategies for Teaching English Effectively
Teaching grammar and writing can be fun and exciting. Learn ideas and strategies for effective teaching. Learn what new brain research reveals about how we learn and its application to mastery learning. Then, learn from the author of Easy Writing how to teach higher level sentence structures that will help your children write complex sentence structures and include variety in their writing.
-Transition Assessment: Good Planning, Better Services, Best Practices
This session will present a high level overview of the critical Transition Assessment questions, a brief look at the state Transition Matrix and how they work together in developing a good Transition Plan. Participants will take and interactive role in discussing how Transition Planning leads to Transition Services and support alternatives. Each participant will take away notes and resource information to be used in the development of a Transition Plan.
SESSION DESCRIPTIONS- Tuesday, October 27
8:30-11:30 AM: KEYNOTE- Brain Research Survival Guide for Students with Learning Disabilities: New Neuroscience, Auditory Processing, and Memory, Dr. Martha S. Burns
Neuroscientists have learned more about the human brain in the past few years than in the 100 years that led up to it. The research explosion has dramatically altered the way we view Learning Disabilities: both with respect to causation and intervention. From research on how auditory processing systems develop, to causation of attentional and memory problems, the recent findings have ushered in a new era investigating the power of LD intervention in facilitating and augmenting neural plasticity. This presentation will summarize the new findings on typical and atypical brain development, including the cortical auditory processing systems, maturation of the pre-frontal lobe, the mirror neuron mechanism, and memory systems. The course will emphasize new trends in LD intervention resulting from recent research findings.
12:30-3:30 PM: Two Concurrent Sessions
-Activate the Brain Presentation Handout
Most of our children today are kinesthetic learners. Enjoy this fun, interactive session where presenters create ideas where you can get your children up and moving. See how to integrate classroom concepts with movement concepts while you learn information from recent brain research. Make your lessons energizing and more relevant to young people.
-Disproportionality in Special Education
The overrepresentation of culturally and linguistically diverse children in special education and the quality of their educational experiences have been regarded as among the most significant issues faced by the U.S. public school system in the past 30 years. IDEA mandates nondiscriminatory assessment, identification, and placement of children with disabilities. Children are not to be identified as disabled because of poor achievement due to environmental “disadvantage” or ethnic, linguistic, or racial difference. However, nationally, some ethnic groups continue to be overrepresented in special education. Participants will learn what has been done both nationally and in Iowa to address this issue.
-Easy Games & Easy Grammar
This fun, fast-paced seminar allows participants to play educational games. Learn an easy approach to teaching and learning grammar as well as ideas and strategies for effective teaching that you can take back to your classroom and incorporate immediately.
-Making Sense of Mathematics in Everyday Life – Using Web-Based Resources
Learn about Problem Solved: Making Sense of Mathematics, a set of web-based resources designed to help students make sense of mathematics concepts and procedures. The Problem Solved Web site includes engaging videos and follow-up materials depicting real-life situations. Video characters make sense of key mathematics concepts and skills as they represent and solve problems. Follow-up materials give students the opportunity to solve problems similar to those in the video and extend their reasoning.
Modality Instruction – Teach to Children…not at them!
Identifying your student’s learning style, the characteristics, and how it affects teaching is not magic nor mystical. It may even cause you to think “outside the box”. Learn how to identify and learn something about the visual, the auditory, and the kinesthetic learner.
-Right-Brained Learners in Left-Brained Schools
This presentation will provide information on the left-brain vs. the right-brain. The majority of individuals with a learning disability and/or an attention deficit disorder tend to have weaknesses in left-brained processing and strengths in the kind of thinking done by the right side of the brain. Our schools are designed for the left-brain majority, and those who process with the right brain, are unable to succeed and their gifts go unrecognized. In this session, participants will learn strategies for teaching right-brained learners as well as identifying and strengthening their gifts.
-Take Aim! at Vocabulary
Participants will learn how the Read Naturally’s research-based Take Aim! at Vocabulary curriculum can be used to promote the development of vocabulary in middle-grade students. This presenter will explain the curriculum’s research-based strategies and demonstrate how the curriculum components support vocabulary development as students learn high-quality vocabulary words in the context of nonfiction stories.
-The Mind That’s Mine: Teaching Students How They Learn Best
In order to become successful in academics and life, students must identify and apply the strategies, methods, and learning environments that work best for them. Participants will learn how to guide students in this process.
-Twice Exceptional Learners: Strategies for Helping the LD/Gifted Student in the Classroom,
This presentation will explore teaching strategies that will help the learning disabled/gifted student in the classroom. Practical and usable ideas for large group, small group, and individualized lessons will help teachers maximize learning opportunities for students identified as both learning disabled and gifted. Many resources and activities will be shared.
-Transforming the Reluctant Reader
This presentation includes booklists, Web sites, and dozens of put-into-practice-tomorrow tactics that help turn reluctant readers into "books rock" students. (K-12)