ISSS News and Noteworthy:
ISSS’ Literacy Connection

Literacy skills, encompassing listening, speaking, reading, and writing, are key to academic and social success for students and young adults. The research-based underpinnings of literacy instruction, grounded in oral language development, are detailed in the Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read (2000), summarized in Put Reading First - The Research Blocks for Teaching Children to Read (2001), and embraced in Connecticut’s Blueprint for Reading Achievement (2000). The ISSS Initiative supports the national movement toward collaborative responsibility among professionals for improved student literacy outcomes. Speech-language pathologists (SLPs), in particular, have been challenged to partner with general and special educators to collaborate in developing and implementing literacy-related programs.

Linking Language with Literacy

In summer 2002 ISSS hosted a 2½-day intensive professional development activity entitled Teaming to Support Language and Literacy: A Summer Institute. The presenter was Dr. Judy K. Montgomery, a professor at Chapman University, School of Education, researcher, and co-author of Making a Difference for America’s Children: Speech-language Pathologists in Public Schools (2001).

Dr. Montgomery presented to a diverse audience of classroom teachers (Pre-K though grade 4), special educators, speech-language pathologists, ELL specialists, reading/Language Arts coordinators, reading recovery teachers, and a school-psychologist. School teams learned how to analyze the language demands of curricular texts by “mining” literature selections. Their analyses addressed each of the five components of reading instruction described in Put Reading First: phonemic awareness, phonics instruction, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension. Dr. Montgomery engaged participants in activities based on instructional methods appropriate for general education classroom use. She also modified many of the approaches for struggling readers, children with Intellectual Disability, autism, speech-language impairment, and learning disabilities. Each team concluded the Institute by developing an action plan specific to the needs of their school.

Links

Put Reading First: The Research Blocks for Teaching Children to Read (http://www.nifl.gov/partnershipforreading/publications/reading_first1.html)

Connecticut’s Blueprint for Reading Achievement (www.state.ct.us/sde/dtl/curriculum/currcbra.htm)

Dr. Judy K. Montgomery (http://www.agsnet.com/slp/jm.asp)

For more information, please contact:
SERC Consultants: Ruth D. Kirsch, LCSW, Ph.D., (860) 632-1485 (ext. 364) or Donna D. Merritt, Ph.D., CCC, ext. (337)