President's Letter

October is Dyslexia Awareness Month and several upcoming conferences offer an opportunity to learn more about ways to help students who struggle with language skills.

Locally, there is our branch's fall program for teens, which will be held on Saturday, October 25, at Sacred Heart Preparatory School in Atherton from 10:30 am to 1:00 pm. Diane Shepard, a New Mexico-based specialist in teaching and learning strategies, will present a fun workshop on study skills that really work. The workshop is called "The Magic of Success" for a very good reason—Diane is a magician as well as a learning specialist! This program is designed to give teenagers hands-on practice with strategies they can use right away in their classrooms. Although the workshop is designed for teens, parents and educators are welcome as well.

I also urge you to take advantage of the fact that IDA's national conference is in Seattle this year from October 29 to November 1. Why not get together a group of friends and colleagues and make the trip up? The program includes more than 150 education and professional development sessions. You can register online at www.interdys.org.

More upcoming programs

Mark your calendars with the dates of two upcoming branch programs. On January 31, 2009, noted educator Marcia Henry, PhD, will speak at The Nueva School in Hillsborough on "Ways with Words: Effective Vocabulary Instruction." We are also excited to be collaborating with Palo Alto Unified School District to bring out Maryanne Wolf, EdD, director of the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University and author of Proust and the Squid. She will present two programs in Palo Alto on March 12 and 14, 2009. One will be a Thursday afternoon workshop for teachers; the second will be a Saturday morning program for parents and educators. Check our website for details as they become available.

Branch teacher training scholarships awarded

Thanks to our scholarship committee chair Jennifer Rabalais and committee members Cathy Dunn, Andrea Shuel and Cathy Robinson, who oversaw the awarding of seven scholarships to teachers participating in Slingerland training this summer. Four applicants took the training in San Francisco, two in San Jose and one in the East Bay. Applicants included classroom teachers, resource specialists, educational therapists and a doctoral student at UC Berkeley. The scholarships are designed to cover approximately half the cost of tuition and materials for these very worthwhile programs.

Thank you, Floy Marks!

Finally, I want to say a special thank you to outgoing Branch Advisory Board Member Floy Marks. Floy has tirelessly served our branch for years in many volunteer capacities. Most recently she was chair of our hospitality committee, which coordinates the food for our public events. She and her husband Ron have also put in untold hours assembling our branch's popular dyslexia simulation kits and working for us at local and national conferences. We cannot thank them enough for all their efforts!


Sincerely,
Leslie Lingaas Woodward