Events

South OC Dyslexia Parent Support Group

One evening per month  -Contact Haya Sakadjian for more information.

Riverside Dyslexia Parent Support Group

The Riverside Parent Support Group is temporarily on hold.  If you’re interested in attending a support group in Riverside, please send an email to Regina Manning at tcb.info@dyslexia-ca.org.  Thank you.

Our other events:

Did you miss attending one of our past live webinars? No worries! Recordings are available at: https://tinyurl.com/TCBPastWebinars.

Meanwhile, sign up for these exciting future webinars. Webinars are free!

Webinar:  A 30,000 Foot Overview of Dyslexia

Description:  This 30,000 ft. overview of dyslexia will provide insight into how the brain learns to read, especially the brains of students identified with dyslexia versus their neurotypical peers.  We will cover characteristics of dyslexia by grade level and myths and misconceptions surrounding dyslexia. 

This webinar was originally scheduled for October 15, 2024 but is now rescheduled for:  Tuesday, March 25, 2025.

SPEAKER:  Amy Gulley 

Amy Gulley; M.Ed in Literacy and Curriculum. Also, certified Academic Language Therapist (CALT), Tampa, Florida 33609, Cell: 940-453-4882    
Amy Gulley’s bio:   Amy Gulley is the Director of Learning and Development and Dyslexia Specialist at Step By Step Learning/MGT. Amy manages all Step By Step consultants and designs professional development to deliver both internally and externally. She works directly with consultants to ensure all consultants are current in Structured Literacy instructional practices. She is a manager and leader who understands the daily demands of consultants in the field and practicing educators. Her work has been mainly in the public-school sector providing direct services to students identified with dyslexia and more recently, managing consultants in providing coaching of Structured Literacy practices in schools. She is passionate about supporting consultants in impact change with students.
Before joining Step By Step Learning, Amy was the Director of Trainers for The Institute for Multisensory Education as well as the Dyslexia Specialist. She managed and trained instructors in the Orton-Gillingham methodology and Structured Literacy practices. Before her role at IMSE, Amy was a Dyslexia Specialist providing direct dyslexia services to students in the public school system in Texas. She believes one of the best ways to close the reading gap in this country is to provide ALL students the opportunity to evidence-based instructional practices.
Amy received her bachelor’s degree in social work from The University of North Texas. Later she pursued a master’s degree in education with an emphasis in Literacy and Curriculum at the University of Texas- Arlington.

Registration Link:

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7485608648205836381

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Webinar:  Has Handwriting Become an Instructional Dinosaur?

Handwriting May Be More Important Than You Think!

Best Practices for Handwriting Instruction

Description: 

Explicit handwriting instruction, purposefully integrated into the teaching of reading and written expression, is important!  Handwriting and keyboarding do not develop naturally; they need to be taught. Which is better: Manuscript, Cursive, or Keyboarding? Use of keyboarding has not eliminated the need for accurate handwriting and spelling. Writing—but not typing—helps build important neural connections, strengthening the orthographic loop of working memory—which integrates letters and written words in the mind’s eye with sequential hand and finger movements during writing (Berninger, 2013). Longitudinal research (Berninger, 2012) demonstrates that individual differences predict which students do best with manuscript, cursive, and/or keyboarding—and when. All three should be taught to all children so they can become multi-lingual by hand in the information age  (Berninger, 2013).

In 1937, Samuel Orton pinpointed the difficulty of students with specific written language difficulties, “From our studies, extending over the past 10 years . . . we have so far been able to recognize only one factor which is common to the entire group and that is difficulty in repicturing or rebuilding in the order of presentation, sequences of letters, of sounds, or of units of movement. . .” For handwriting to become functional, students must learn the unique sequence of movements needed for formation of each individual letter (handwriting).

Kinesthetic memory is the earliest, strongest and most reliable form of memory. Once children can form legible letters, the goal of writing instruction becomes automatic letter formation—so mental resources can be devoted to generating thoughts, translating thoughts into spelling, sentence structure, and text organization. Likewise, the goal of teaching keyboarding is automatic typing without need for looking at the keys. Emphasis is on building associations between visual, auditory, and kinesthetic (writing and speech) channels for language learning leading to automatic recognition and lessening the load on rote visual memory. Speed comes with consistent practice—as the unique sequence of movements for forming (and connecting in cursive) each letter is automatically recalled; the same is true for automatic keyboarding.

Writing is a simultaneous process involving spatial organization, margins, letter formation, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, vocabulary, and grammar and syntax. Sufficient working memory is necessary to enable a student to remember and think at the same time. Writing skills are unlikely to develop in optimal ways unless the teaching of handwriting is a part of overall literacy instruction so that children gradually use handwriting functionally as they learn it. The goal of teaching manuscript, cursive, and keyboarding is to provide an automatic, legible tool that enhances all aspects of literacy.

Student work samples and video clips of handwriting instruction will be included as part of this presentation. 

SPEAKER:  Nancy Cushen White, Ed.D.

Nancy Cushen White, Ed.D. is a Clinical Professor, Dept of Pediatrics, Division of Adolescent & Young Adult Medicine, at UCSF. Over the past 40+ years, she has taught students in general and special education classrooms at public and independent schools, provided psychoeducational assessment and literacy intervention, trained pre- and in-service teachers and practitioners, developed curricula, and been involved in policy. She piloted a San Francisco USD special day class for 2e—Twice Exceptional students who were gifted with a diagnosis of dyslexia; has taught young adults in a pre-trial diversion program through San Francisco Superior Court—Mentor Court Division; worked for 9 years as a Literacy Intervention Consultant and Case Manager for Lexicon Reading Center—Dubai; and trains teachers in the Slingerland Multisensory (Multimodal) Structured Language Approach (Structured Literacy) as a certified Instructor of Teaching for the Slingerland Literacy Institute. She presents workshops; serves as a member of the editorial board for IDA’s publication; Perspectives on Language and Literacy; and works on numerous boards and advisory boards such as the National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities (NJCLD), the Northern California Branch of IDA, the CA State Literacy Team and associated literacy work groups.

Registration Link:

https://event.gotowebinar.com/event/b711867c-317c-4d44-ad01-2d0815e2f676

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Want to help support MORE webinars like these? Consider joining IDA-TCB! Membership information is available at https://tinyurl.com/TCBmembership.