Every 18 months Reading Horizons invites their distributors and trainers from across the country to join together at their headquarters, in Salt Lake City, Utah. During the conference we bond, receive training and share our vision of helping individuals improve their reading skills. The 2010 conference was enjoyed by all who attended.

The Reading Horizons staff provided training on various subjects including, what's new with Reading Horizons v5 curriculum, research supporting Reading Horizons v5, and the future of marketing, just to name a few.  The highlight of the conference was Dr. Neil J. Anderson, who presented, "Five reason why ELLs (English Language Learners) benefit from explicit phonics instruction."  Dr. Anderson is a Professor of Linguistics and English Language at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. He also serves as the Coordinator of the English Language Center. He teaches courses in the TESOL Master’s program as well as language classes to second language learners. In his presentation he pointed out that:

1. There are English decoding rules, so why not explicitly teach them?
2. Reading fluency increases as learners have strong decoding skills.
3. Oral reading improves when learners can correctly decode the words.
4. Spelling improves when learners have strong decoding skills.
5. Motivation and confidence increase when learners read well.

Not only were the conference sessions informative, but we, as a Reading Horizons team, were able to connect and bond.  We come from all over the world but we have a common goal: Imagine all the good we can do as we teach reading strategies to improve reading skills.
Special thanks to the Reading Horizons staff, distributors and trainers. 

Watch a video montage of the conference.

Guest blog post from, Reading & Other Learning Disabilities: A Blog by Dr. Gary G. Brannigan and Dr. Howard Margolis

Many children with reading disabilities have poor memories. Fortunately, teachers can do a great deal to improve the memory of these children, which, in turn, improves their learning. To do this, teachers must first capture and then keep the children's attention. They must then focus instruction on the acronym REMOS: Repeat It, Elaborate or Explain it, Make it Meaningful, Organize it, and engage in Spaced or Distributed Practice.

In practical terms, the teacher must get the children to:

Attend to What’s Important. Teachers have a good chance of capturing and keeping children’s attention if they're enthusiastic about what they're teaching, make it interesting, use novelty, use words the children can understand, use pictures or multimedia to illustrate what they want remembered, and assign materials the children can read comfortably.

To keep the attention of children with reading disabilities during a lecture, teachers should break the lecture into eight to ten minute blocks. Each block should focus on one concept; the first few minutes should emphasize the main point; the next few minutes should elaborate on it. After each block, the children should take a break. During the break, the teacher might tell a story to illustrate the major concept, or the children might engage in a short group activity, like scripting a podcast, or individually, they might spend five minutes illustrating the major concept. They might even spend a few minutes exercising lightly. To learn more about structuring a lecture to keep a class’s attention, read Brain Rules. In this enlightening book, John Medina describes how and why he divides his lectures into ten-minute blocks.

Repeat It. If you want to remember something, repeat it or lose it. Teachers need to structure their lessons so children with reading disabilities have many opportunities to repeat and practice what they need to remember. Repeat does not mean saying it silently one or two times. If it's important, children should say it six or seven times, maybe twelve to sixteen times, maybe seventeen to umpteen times. However, asking children to repeat what they don't understand often benefits no one. They quickly forget what's not understood, what's not meaningful to them. Elaboration can make things meaningful.

Elaborate on It. To say it another way, teachers should create lots of opportunities for children to talk about it, and talk about it, and talk about it. Children should discuss it. If it’s controversial, they might switch between the “pro” and “con” positions. Talk is important, but it should be meaningful. The more meaningful something is, the more likely it will be remembered.

Make It Meaningful. The more children understand something, the more likely they'll remember it. Teachers can give meaning to an abstract concept by helping children relate it to their lives. To reinforce and extend the meaning of the word practical, the teacher might begin a discussion by asking, “So in your house or near it, what do people do that's practical? What makes it practical? After the discussion, the teacher might ask the children to “take five minutes to draw a picture of someone doing something practical and something impractical.” To make practical even more meaningful, she can have the children share their pictures: “Show your pictures to your neighbor. Tell your neighbor what was practical and impractical in your picture. And tell them why it was practical and impractical.”

Organize the Information. When teachers help children with reading disabilities to organize information—in ways the children find meaningful—they'll remember the information better than if it's random or unorganized. Here's a list of ten words: pineapple, collie, cantaloupe, chihuahua, bulldog, apple, grape, terrier, boxer, peach. If children try to remember all the words as one list, they'll forget most of them in a week. If they organize the words into the categories of dogs and fruit, they'll remember many more of them. Even their mistakes will fall into the two groups: dogs and fruit. Try it.

The teacher must also:

Schedule Spaced or Distributed Practice. When referring to children with reading disabilities, spaced or distributed practice refers to assessing the effects of instruction a day or two after the initial instruction and then re-teaching children what they didn't remember or master. For maximum effect, teachers should repeat the process some three to four weeks later. They should assess what was taught and re-teach what was forgotten. This can have a profound effect on the children’s memory and application of skills.

The good news about gaining and maintaining children's attention and using REMOS is that the principles are straightforward. Teachers can use them—easily. So can parents.

Resources
Medina, J. (2009). Brain rules. Seattle, WA: Pear Press.

Howard Margolis, Ed.D. © Reading2008 & Beyond www.reading2008.com
A version of this column was originally published by Howard Margolis, Ed.D. on www.reading2008.com.  Howard is also co-author of Reading Disabilities: Beating the Odds.

Last week I attended the Council for Exception Children Conference or CEC. Here are the top 10 things I learned at the conference.

1. Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education was the keynote speaker this year.  In his speech he said that, “Education is the civil rights issue of our generation”.  View parts of his speech here.
 
2. CEC really is a fabulous organization.  It is so important to have people who are “the voice and vision of special education”.  This is a great conference that Reading Horizons loves to support.

3. Creating a multi-sensory experience is very important for children with special needs.  In the booth next to me there was a company who sold sensory play ground equipment.  They had a sample of their playground and people couldn’t resist touching it.  I guess most people are sensory.

4. Also from Arne Duncan’s speech, “6 million students with disabilities are currently in school and millions of them are thriving.”  It is because of organizations such as CEC and the population of children they serve. 

5. People in Nashville are very hospitable.  I was so surprised with how kind and helpful everyone was that I talked to while I was in Tennessee. Now I know why they call is “southern hospitality”.

6. Teachers who work with secondary students LOVED our new Library component that focuses on comprehension.  Who wouldn’t want to read stories about Jerry Rice, Talk like a Pirate day and Rugby?

7.  While talking to speech pathologists our Pronunciation Tool came up.  They really liked being able to use that tool with their students.

8.  After talking to students who are in the process of graduating, many of them have concerns that they still didn’t have the skills they need to reach their struggling readers.  They were taught how to manipulate curriculum to fit student needs but they were not taught phonics and decoding strategies.  I gave them all a card for our free Online Workshop.  This workshop is free phonics instruction.  This is a great tool for new teachers when they encounter students that struggle with reading.

9.  The conference was held at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel.  I have never seen anything like it.  So amazing I have attached some pictures.

10.  It was great to network with others who share my same passion for helping those who struggle to learn to read.  Knowledge is power and with the ability to overcome reading difficulties we can create powerful learners.

Hi, my name is Angela and I am the Public Relations Assistant for Reading Horizons.  I have been with the company for just over 6 months and I have learned a lot in my time here.  I have just been added to the list of featured bloggers for Reading Horizons and I am excited to begin to share what is happening at Reading Horizons. I have written several of the most recent blog posts via my supervisor’s account. I will now be posting on my own accord and the other featured bloggers will continue to write weekly posts.

I am not an expert on reading or literacy by any means but have recently discovered my passion for literacy as I have worked for Reading Horizons. It was an unexpected discovery. When I graduated from the University of Utah with a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing in August of 2009 I was eager for a job and probably applied for over 200 different jobs. When Reading Horizons contacted me for an interview I didn’t remember sending in a resume. I was at the point where I would apply for almost any job I might be qualified for. I was told that because of the high volume of resumes they had received they were having everyone who was interested in the job come during one of several time slots and they would quickly interview everyone.  Once I found out that my chances where slim, I was almost tempted to not go to the interview.  But because of the difficulty of getting even one job interview I decided I would go. When I arrived I sat in a room with at least 10 other people and even as I sat in there I felt discouraged and thought of leaving, but I stayed. I have never been particularly strong when it comes to job interviews but miraculously it went very well. The job I was applying for was a Secretarial position and as I was being interviewed by the President of the company he told me he thought I might be overqualified for the job because I had just received my Bachelor’s degree. In frustration I explained: “I’m either overqualified or under qualified for every job!” On the spot he started thinking about ways the company could use my Marketing skills and told me to wait for the Marketing Manager to get back from her honeymoon in a week and he would have her call me in for another interview. She wanted to have an employee focus specifically on Public Relations and Social Media within the Marketing department and that’s how I started working at Reading Horizons.

As I have learned more about literacy and reading instruction I have developed a passion for the subject. Although I thoroughly enjoy and am interested in Marketing my true passion is Psychology (it just didn’t feel right in College). I care a lot about people’s emotions and society as a whole. Even though I care about people I have learned empathy for different emotions at different stages in my life. The most valuable thing I have gained from working at Reading Horizons is empathy and understanding for people who struggle to learn. In my youth I would become frustrated by the other students in my classes that couldn’t seem to understand and grasp concepts that I thought seemed so simple and straight forward. Because I excelled in school I had teachers that would often give me special assignments to sit by struggling students and help explain what we were learning. I tried my best to be patient but inside I was frustrated.

Luckily, I have gained a better understanding of why many people do struggle to grasp concepts from working at Reading Horizons. I will never again think someone is stupid or incapable because they struggle to pick up a concept. I’ve learned a lot about how people’s brains can be wired differently, especially those that struggle with dyslexia. With my fascination in Psychology you would think I would’ve understood that much earlier in life- but I think I was always more interested in personality differences and emotions than by actual brain functioning. But now I firmly believe that when people struggle to learn something it is because of the way their brain is wired or because they are not receiving instructions the way that is best for their individual learning style. That’s why I believe in Reading Horizons program- it is specifically designed to solve both of those problems. The program is multi-sensory by design and engages an individual's senses (visual, auditory and kinesthetic) in order to activate different parts of the brain.  This type of instruction is specifically sequenced to best appeal to struggling readers.  I love helping educators and struggling readers become aware of the Reading Horizons program.  I receive phone calls daily about how this reading program changes people's lives.  As for me, the knowledge I have gained at Reading Horizons has changed my perspective on life.

If you are reading this article- you probably spend a lot of time on the internet. But what is this habit doing to you and your literacy skills? Recent research now lets us know.

Researchers have conducted studies which they believe prove the internet has ‘rewired’ the way our brains absorb information.

When you are searching the internet how long do you think you spend on a single page? (Hopefully you’re still on this page at this point!) Probably not very long. The internet offers so many gateways to other pages, that it has made it difficult for us to focus on one piece of information at a time.

In other words: the internet is making us all a little more A.D.D.

Experts describe this habit of darting from page to page as "associative" thinking. They have especially noticed this habit in younger children, whom are comparably less focused on studying, reading, and writing then the age group was when measured in the past. This is damaging to reading ability because it decreases our ability to comprehend what we read.

Here is a broadcast from NPR about the internet's impact on our brains:

Some psychologists disagree with these findings, and assert that there is no evidence of our brains being changed by the internet. 

The contenders point out that young people have always had a hard time concentrating, thus the findings are not reliable. It is possible that the discrepancies in the findings between adults and children’s reading abilities is not a result of the internet, rather the difference is a result of the two groups being at different stages of brain development. 

Another way researchers believe the internet has impacted our critical thinking abilities is that we now use less reliable sources to learn about new ideas. We often accept any article as fact. They found that students children’s reading abilities now do less research before answering a question. They also found that they trusted their friends for answers more than adults. They attributed this habit being a result of internet exposure, but it could simply be that children are more trusting and less skeptical.

There is another argument as to whether the internet as a main source of information, will make us more intelligent or if the quality of our intelligence and education will decline.  Although experts agree that the internet changes literacy- they do not agree with whether it is for the better or worse of society. 

A recent survey by the Pew Research Institute reveals what people think about the internet’s impact on our intelligence. 76% of the respondents agreed that the internet makes us more intelligent by providing access to more information thus allowing us to make better decisions.  21% of the respondents thought the internet does not make us more intelligent and might even lower or IQ’s. 

Some interesting quotes about the internet and literacy:

"I'm at the Digital Media and Learning conference this week, where no one would suggest the Internet and search engines are making kids less smart. It does create new issues of literacy, in the same way that the printing press created new capacities and standards of literacy.” -Alex Halavais, vice president of the Association of Internet Researchers

"What the Net does is shift the emphasis of our intelligence, away from what might be called a meditative or contemplative intelligence and more toward what might be called a utilitarian intelligence. The price of zipping among lots of bits of information is a loss of depth in our thinking.” -Nicolas Carr, Author of "The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google"

"An adult's IQ can be influenced much either way by reading anything, and I would guess that smart people will use the Internet for smart things and stupid people will use it for stupid things in the same way that smart people read literature and stupid people read crap fiction.” -Sandra Kelly, 3M Corp.'s Market Research Manager

As you decide to rely more on the internet to build your intellegence and literacy skills be sure to choose sources that encourage you to use the internet for "smart things."

P.S.

If you enjoyed this post, you may also enjoy: "30 Reasons Reading Should Take Priority Over Technology & Social Media"