This professional development session provides 2nd and 3rd-grade teachers with the neuro-scientific rationale and practical strategies to propel students toward reading fluency and comprehension.
We will move beyond basic phonics to explore the critical skills needed for intermediate-level reading. Grounded in the Science of Reading and the work of neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene (The "Brain's Letterbox" / VWFA), this session focuses on the need to develop a fast, efficient "compositional code" for word recognition.
Participants will learn to:
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Understand the Reading Brain: Explore the concept of neuronal recycling and why explicit, systematic instruction is essential for making word recognition automatic and freeing up working memory for comprehension.
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Diagnose Multisyllabic Errors: Use student data and work samples to pinpoint deficits in syllabication and morphology (prefixes, suffixes, and root words).
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Implement the Toolkit: Learn and practice two high-impact, low-prep routines—Syllable Segmentation and Morphology Mapping—to equip students with the skills to decode complex, unfamiliar words instantly.
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Bridge to Fluency: Discover effective small-group strategies for developing the automaticity required to transition effortlessly from "learning to read" to "reading to learn."
This is not a "sit-and-get" session; expect an engaging, hands-on experience that will provide immediately actionable strategies to accelerate litera