Letter from the President
Welcome to the spring issue of the NCBIDA newsletter. Our editor, Brian Inglesby, has put together an intriguing selection of material with a focus on reading comprehension. For many students, especially those with dyslexia, reading comprehension is a skill that must be explicitly taught. Our spring program speaker, learning specialist Suzanne Carreker, is an expert in this area. Her article in this issue describes a few of the techniques she recommends for improving students' understanding of what they read, such as previewing the material and connecting what is read to the readers' experience and knowledge base. She will cover these approaches and much more when she speaks at our Saturday, May 12th program from 9:00 am to noon at Nueva School in Hillsborough. Join us for what promises to be an informative morning for both educators and parents.
Also in this issue is Marshall Raskind's practical article on optical character recognition (OCR) systems, otherwise known as "reading machines." His explanation of research on the effectiveness of these devices will be particularly helpful to parents deciding whether to invest in them.
If you are an educator, be sure to check our spring/summer schedule of multisensory structured language education (MSLE) training programs. These courses will provide you with tools and techniques that can be put to immediate use in helping students who are struggling with reading, writing, and spelling. In case you missed our earlier announcements, NCBIDA is taking a break this year from our tradition of offering teacher training scholarships. This is allowing us to take an in-depth look at our overall efforts to promote teacher training in MSLE — an important part of our branch's work.
Finally, a very warm welcome to our new branch members, whose names you will find listed in this newsletter. IDA is a membership organization, and advancing our shared mission is driven by the strength of our numbers. Membership dues help IDA continue its 57-year tradition of promoting the development and dissemination of dyslexia research, best practices, multisensory teaching techniques, and public information. If you are not a member, please join us online at www.interdys.org. We need you!
Leslie Lingaas Woodward
President, NCBIDA
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