2020 Pennsylvania Department of Education Annual Conference, March 9-11, 2020

Join Dr. Tolman for two sessions on Wednesday, March 11th, 2020:

Language Structures and Verbal Reasoning: Missing Links in Close Reading Lessons

Gough and Tunmer’s Simple View of Reading (SVR) identifies two major components to reading comprehension: word recognition and language comprehension. Dr. Tolman's presentation focuses on language comprehension; specifically, on the areas of language structures and verbal reasoning, two often-ignored components of reading comprehension lessons crucial to the success of reading deeply. Increasing teachers’ awareness of how to analyze sentence types, develop sentence sense, and predict complex sentence structures is key to supporting students' understandings of what they read and hear. Additionally, marking text to identify pronouns and their references, along with analyzing the cohesiveness of an author's work, provides a deeper understanding of written discourse. Language structures and verbal reasoning are the focus of this interactive, hands-on session, abolishing the common, ineffective practice of testing, testing, and more testing. 

Assessment and Instruction through the Lens of the Hourglass Figure 

Join Dr. Tolman's session as she focuses on word recognition, including an outline of the 'what' and 'why' of basic assessment tools and instructional practices. Appropriate for educators and administrators supporting students in K-6, discussion will center on Tier 1 word work and spelling skills as well as how best to identify and address student weaknesses in phonology, basic phonics, and/or advanced word study. 

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