Monthly Archive for February, 2008

Another LD as generic

Published on 27 February 2008 in News, Not LD and Policy. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

V. Dion Haynes
Washington Post

Dear Mr. Haynes,

In your article about changes in the administration of special education in Washington (DC, US), entitled “Special-Ed Getting New Computer System, Staff” appearing 27 February 2008 on page B04,” you used the term “Learning Disabilities” as a generic reference for students with various other, legally recognized disabilities. Here is an extract (my underlining):

For years, city and school officials have criticized programs provided by the D.C. schools’ special education office, which serves 9,400 students with physical or learning disabilities. The school system spends about $137 million a year on private school tuition for about 2,400 children it cannot serve in the public schools.

Specific Learning Disabilities is a specific category of disability under US federal law (Public Law 108-446, 108th Congress), and it is expressly differentiated from mental retardation, emotional disturbance, and other disabilities. It is not a generic term and should not be used to refer to multiple categories of disabilities. Although it may seem trivial to some, this difference is important to many. Using the term “learning disabilities” as a generic obscures important differences in students and may even undermine efforts by parents and educators to seek services for students who have learning disabilities, emotional or behavioral disorders, intellectual disabilities, autism, and speech-language disorders (among others).

I hope that this note is helpful. Thank you for your reporting of the substantive content in your article (which I’ve covered elsewhere).

John Wills Lloyd, Ph.D.
Editor, LD Blog
Professor, University of Virginia

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Lehigh law conference

Published on 25 February 2008 in Administration, News and Policy. 0 Comments

Lehigh University will offer a conference on special education law in May under the title, “Special Education Law: A Roadmap of Reality, Resolution, and Remedies.” The special one-day meeting, which is the 36th annual installment in the series, features many interesting topics including a keynote by Perry Zirkel, noted authority on legal issues in Learning Disabilities and related areas of special education.

The conference is scheduled for 9 May 2008 and will be held in Bethlehem (PA, US). Link to the agenda for the conference.

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DLD Elections

Published on 13 February 2008 in News. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Every year, the past president of the Division for Learning Disabilities presents candidates for offices in the Division for Learning Disabilities (DLD). This year, Karen Rooney has assembled an outstanding slate of candidates for whom members of DLD can vote.

For secretary Erica Lembke
University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 		June Szabo-Kifer
Bishop Garcia Diego High School, Santa Barbara, CA
 
For vice president Gary Troia
Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 		Linda Siegel
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC
 
For president-elect Anthony Van Reusen
California State University, Bakersfield, CA 		Kenneth Kavale
Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA.

Members, jump to TeachingLD to vote.

If you’re a member of CEC but not a member of DLD, you can still join in time to vote. If you already belong to CEC, you can call CEC’s Constituent Services Center US toll free at (888) 232-7733 [TTY (703) 264-9446] and add DLD membership for just $20. If you’re not a member of CEC, it’s a bit more costly, but you can join CEC and DLD in time to vote; just call the same number.

Disclosure: I’m a former officer of DLD and currently serve as the organization’s executive director.

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J. Lee Wiederholt

Published on 13 February 2008 in Comments, Events, History and News. 0 Comments Tags: , .
Lee at a desk
J. Lee Wiederholt

J. Lee Wiederholt, a widely published author in special education and assessment, died suddenly 19 August 2007. Professor Wiederholt, who was senior vice president of the publishing firm Pro-Ed, trustee for the Donald D. Hammill Foundation, and the trustee of the Hammill Institute on Disabilities, was widely known for diverse contributions to special education and, especially, Learning Disabilities.

After obtaining a doctorate from Temple University in 1971, Professor Wiederholt served as a member of the faculty at the University of Arizona and University of Texas. For much of his career, he was also affiliated with Pro-Ed, a publishing firm that specialized in tests, books, curricular materials, and journals in the area of special education and related disciplines. For ten years he served as editor of the Journal of Learning Disabilities.

As an academic, Professor Wiederholt provided valuable contributions to our understanding of Learning Disabilities. In 1974 he authored an important history of Learning Disabilities that is still routinely cited in texts and other histories of the discipline. For ten years he served as editor of the Journal of Learning Disabilities. As an author and publisher, he developed widely employed assessments such as the TOAL-4: Test of Adolescent and Adult Language and the GORT-4: Gray Oral Reading Tests, among many others.

Thanks to the Donald D. Hammill Foundation for providing the accompanying photograph.

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An illiterate teacher

Published on 13 February 2008 in Dyslexia, News, Policy and The press. 1 Comment Tags: , , .

Joanne Jacobs has a post entitled “The illiterate teacher” about author John Corcoran who reports in a book that he “taught high school social studies, bookkeeping and P.E. for 17 years despite being illiterate.” Ms. Jacobs reported that Mr. Corcoran, who’s book is The Teacher Who Couldn’t Read, also funds a foundation that promotes reading instruction. According to the John Corcoran Foundation Web site, Mr. Corcoran has also written another book, Bridge to Literacy: No Child – or Adult Left Behind.

Link to Ms. Jacob’s post. See also the John Corcoran Foundation Web site.

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Bogus Bowl II

Published on 13 February 2008 in Comments and News. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

In case readers of LD Blog missed it, I posted a new version of the Bogus Bowl over at Teach Effectively. This one is about the excuses that people use for not teaching students. As of this writing, there’s a close contest between the excuse of not liking helpful teaching methods and the rationalization that students’ home lives trump teaching. If you haven’t already done so, please jump over there and vote.

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Posts from the West

Published on 12 February 2008 in Comments, News and Research. 2 Comments Tags: , , , .

Last week, Liz Ditz teased us with notices about her whereabouts: She was attending an annual conference about brain research and learning. Don’t think I’ve flipped a wig; she wasn’t hearing the pablum that we usually get on this topic. This is a scholarly event, with presentations by eminent authorities (Is that redundant? Nope.) who are invited to discuss their work. I wrote to Liz that I envied her opportunity to attend.

Liz posted these entries: What I Am Doing This Week: Learning and the Brain Conference and Cognitive Neuroscience and Education: A Ways to Go. Go read them and then monitor her site for updates from her conference adventures. I shall do so, and mayhaps she’ll send LD Blog a heads up when there are going to be new entries!

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FCRR dyslexia document

Published on 10 February 2008 in Administration, Dyslexia, Families, News, Policy and Research. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Joe Torgesen, Barbara Foorman, and Richard Wagner of the Florida Center for Reading Research published an excellent overview of dyslexia that is readily available for public download. Although the title, “Dyslexia: A Brief for Educators, Parents, and Legislators in Florida,” makes it sound as if it is only applicable to people in a specific geographical area bounded by arbitrary marks on maps, this paper will be useful to millions of people.

In the document, Torgesen and his eminent colleagues address questions such as these: What is Dyslexia? What type of instruction is most effective for students with dyslexia? and Can reading difficulties in dyslexic students be prevented? How effective is remedial instruction for older students with dyslexia? The writing is clear as well as clearly well-informed.

This document will be valuable to people in PreK-12 schools, students studying education and the professors who should be teaching them the contents of the document; parents who are seeking straight talk with the authority of firm scientific underpinnings; and advocates who can benefit by distributing a tightly reasoned and written document to help explain concepts to constituents.

Snag a free copy from the Florida Center for Reading Research.

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Dyscalculia videos

Published on 8 February 2008 in Comments, Dyscalculia, News and The press. 0 Comments Tags: .

Under the title “Famous Dyscalculics!” on YouTube, readers can find a video composed of images of famous people who are said to have dyscalculia. There’s lots of repetitive music and text bubbles to help explain the pictures. Here’s the link. That’s one of several on YouTube; the others are called “Dyscalculia” and “Dyscalculia – Not Only Troubles with Math.”

Flash of the electrons to long-time blogger Maria Angala of Special Education Teacher in Washington DC for tipping me to the video.

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Reading fluency

Published on 8 February 2008 in Assessment, Comments and Dyslexia. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Among the fab five components of reading—phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension—different aspects have seemed to be in the spotlight at different times. Of course, this is just my subjective view, but it seems to me that there was disproportionate focus on comprehension in the ’80s and early ’90s, then on decoding in the late ’90s and early ’00s. Recently, it seems that everyone’s talking about fluency.

Although I think that a disproportional focus on fluency is a mistake (more on that in a later paragraph), I thought it would be beneficial to have some resources here on LD Blog about reading fluency. So, I’ve assembled a few recommended links here:

  1. Oregon’s Big Ideas resources on fluency by E. Kame’enui and D. Simmons (n.d.);
  2. Reading Fluency Assessment and Instruction: What, Why, and How? by R. Hudson, H. Lane, and P. C. Pullen (2005).
  3. Reading Fluency by N. Mather and S. Goldstein (2001);
  4. Assessing Reading Fluency by T. V. Rasinski (n.d.);
  5. Secondary Students with Learning Disabilities in Reading: Developing Reading Fluency (PDF) by D. P. Bryant, J. Engelhard, & L. Reetz (n.d.; note that I am republishing the document here because I can no longer find it on the Council for Learning Disabilities site);
  6. Reading Rockets has a slew of resources; this link will get you a listing of them;
  7. Screening, Diagnosing and Progress Monitoring for Fluency by J. Hasbrouck (2006);
  8. Reading Fluency: What, Why, and How? by M. Dunn (PDF) (2007).

One of the reasons that we have to be careful about a disproportional emphasis on fluency is that we don’t want to communicate to learners that reading speed and accuracy, even including prosody, are all there is to reading. That is, fluency is just a means to the end of finding the ideas that the text conveys. This should be the idea of “balanced reading,” in my view. To be sure, fluent decoding is critical, but teacher have to shift the emphasis from the early stages when they are showing students how to unlock the coded material to the should-come-soon stages of comprehending the coded content.

Although it may sound like I’m playing with words, I am not. As strongly as I advocate for teaching early decoding skills efficiently and effectively, I don’t want readers to think that I consider decoding the end in itself. More on this another time… it probably deserves a page and perhaps it belongs on Teach Effectively rather than here on LD Blog.

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