Pizza and PD: Reading, The Brain and Assessment: A Systemic Approach to Powerful Reading Instruction

While an overarching goal of schools is to help all students become strategic and insightful readers, large numbers of our students continue to struggle in reading.  This session will help you to identify specific factors that may be impeding students reading proficiency, and help you to think about a school psychologist’s unique role in identifying and addressing reading difficulties in students. Workshop content will focus on reviewing several models of how the brain processes text,  understanding school-wide assessment structures for literacy and thinking about implications for instruction. Participants will leave the session empowered to improve their multi-tiered systems for literacy within their schools and with specific action items for achieving systemic change.

Learning Targets:

• I can name the primary areas of the brain used in reading and describe their function.
• I can describe the components of literacy and link them to the reading brain.
• I can connect assessments to steps on the continuum of reading skills at various ages/stages of reading development.
• I can describe the purpose of using reading screeners to identify risk status of students.
• I can link assessment data to effective instructional interventions.