Phonics and Beyond

Saturday, Feb. 9, 2008, 9:00 am-12:15 pm (check-in starts 8:30 am)
The Nueva School, 6565 Skyline Blvd., Hillsborough, CA 94010

Educators and parents will be able to brush up on their understanding of phonics and the continuum of structured language that students need to be taught. A basic and advanced track will be available. Speakers are NCBIDA board members and teacher trainers Nancy Cushen White, Nancy Redding, John Osner, and Frances Dickson.

Registration fees: $40 for NCBIDA members, $50 nonmembers, $55 walk-ins, $30 students

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9:00-9:45 am

Introduction and Overview
Frances Dickson, M.A., Reading Specialist, The Nueva School

10:00 am-12:15 pm

Break-out Sessions

Beginning Phonics: How to Help Children Make Sense of Unknown Words
Nancy Redding, M.Ed., and John Osner, M.Ed.

The National Reading Panel has identified several areas that must be addressed in a comprehensive reading program, including phonemic awareness skills and phonics skills. These are the key areas of concern for students who struggle with beginning reading concepts. Participants in this program will become familiar with the vocabulary that surrounds current reading strategies.

They will learn about phonemic awareness, the alphabetic principle, sound/symbol relationship, rules that govern the English language, and syllable concepts. They will gain insight into strategies that students can use to read and spell one-syllable and multi-syllable words, including non-phonetic words. Exercises that are effective in helping students gain fluency in reading will be discussed.

This workshop is designed for parents or educators who would like an introduction to phonics or a "phonics-refresher" course. It will include a review of common terminology as well as strategies to help students decode and encode words encountered in elementary school.

Advanced Phonics and Structure of the English Language
Nancy Cushen White, Ed. D.

Differences between good and poor readers and spellers are associated with significant differences in sensitivity to word structure at both the phonological and morphological levels. Drawing on knowledge of phonology, morphology, and etymology, this session will demonstrate use of explicit, systematic strategies to decode and spell English words of all types.

Students can only use the considerable benefits of English language structure if they know the systems, their components, and their interrelationships. The tools of English (consonant graphemes, vowel graphemes, syllable types, syllabication generalizations, accent generalizations such as schwa, and morphemes) will be discussed.

Participants will learn the similarities and differences in base elements (bound and free), roots and stems. The different functions of inflectional and derivational suffixes will be explained. Chameleon prefixes will be defined. Anglo-Saxon, Latin, and Greek layers of English will be described.

This workshop is designed for educators who are familiar with systematic approaches to reading and spelling one-syllable words and want to learn more advanced strategies that can be applied to the multi-syllable words typically encountered in upper elementary, middle, and high school.

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Important Information on Session Handouts

Handouts for both breakout sessions will be available for download from a online link one week before the program. Registrants may access both sets of handouts, but please print out and bring to the meeting the handouts for the session you will be attending.

Faculty

Nancy Cushen White, Ed.D., a nationally-recognized teacher and learning disabilities specialist, Dr. White is associate clinical professor in the Division of Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, University of California-San Francisco. She conducts summer Slingerland teacher training sessions in the San Francisco area.

Nancy Redding, M.Ed., has worked with learning disabled students for over 30 years and is currently a learning specialist at De Anza College and St. Francis High School. Ms. Redding conducts teacher workshops on the structure of language, is a frequent instructor at Orton-Gillingham summer trainings, and has co-authored multisensory curricula.

John Osner, M.Ed., was an elementary classroom teacher for over 20 years at the Charles Armstrong School (CAS), a private school for dyslexic children. He is currently a mentor doing teacher training in language and mathematics at CAS and has a private educational therapy and consulting business. For the past 16 years, Mr. Osner has directed a teacher training in the Slingerland approach to language instruction.