Resources

These resources were created and/or collected by Outreach staff to assist you in better understanding how to teach students with LBLD.

  • Research Writing Process: Organize, Outline, and Draft

    March 1, 2023 The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) report titled Teaching Secondary Students to Write Effectively asserts that “Effective writing is a vital component of students’ literacy achievement, and writing is a critical communication tool for students to convey thoughts and opinions, describe ideas and events, and analyze information” (Graham et al, 2016, p.1).  

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  • A student taking purposeful research notes

    The Research Writing Process

    Updated February 13, 2023 Why do students with LD struggle with the research and writing process? In their review of recent research into writing interventions for students with learning disabilities, Amy Gillespie Rouse and Ashley Sandoval (2018) make the following observation: “Compared to their peers without learning disabilities, these students spend less time planning for

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  • The Hidden Demands of Writing

    December 12, 2022 Writing is a complex, high-level task that incorporates and synthesizes many language skills from phonemic awareness to handwriting to critical thinking and analysis. In their research to confirm the efficacy of Self-Regulated Strategy Development, Steve Graham and Karen Harris asserted that “skilled writing was a highly demanding process that was self-directed, requiring

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  • Thematic Unit Planning: A How-To Guide

    by Kate Payson and Katie Worden March 1, 2023 When teachers deliver instruction through structured thematic content with carefully chosen vocabulary, students of all ability levels can collaboratively engage in class activities to address necessary language skills. Consistent thematic instruction reduces the cognitive load on students’ working memory, aids in recall, and builds vocabulary and

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  • Phonemic Awareness: What is It, and How Does It Relate to Reading?

    by Courtney Anastasia-Murphy March 3, 2023 Did you know that a six month old baby can tell the difference between two words that differ by one phoneme, such as “pat” and “put”? They can make this phoneme discrimination because phonemes are the “building blocks” of spoken language, and the phonological processor in the brain is

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  • Putting the Decoding Toolkit to Work

    by Natalia Harrison January 4, 2023 Previously, I wrote about the importance of building a common language with students by implementing a Decoding Toolkit. The key benefit of this approach is that, once established, it allows the teacher to more efficiently deliver instruction so time is not lost in explanation and background knowledge.  Students with

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  • Vocabulary Strategy: Use of Context

    by Joan Sedita This post was reprinted with permission from Joan Sedita.  The original post can be accessed here and all posts by Joan Sedita can be accessed at the Literacy Lines blog.  January 10, 2023 An important strategy to help students build their vocabulary is use of context – i.e., using the clues or hints provided in the

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  • The Language Box

    December 21, 2022 The language skills that students are asked to use in a classroom fall into two distinct categories: language processing, or receptive language skills, and language production, or expressive language skills. The columns in the  Language Box™ show these categories.   Receptive Language Skills refer to how we process either spoken or written word.

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  • A boy takes notes at a desk

    The Two-Column Method of Note-taking

    Updated January 10, 2023 Academic proficiency requires students to manage the many language demands inherent in school. As students move from learning to read to reading to learn, systems to help students organize the information that they encounter are not only essential for students with specific learning disabilities, but can be beneficial for all students.  

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