We started our meeting watching THE BOY WITH HIS HEAD IN THE CLOUDS segment of the PBS show Arthur. We watched a cartoon with not a child in the room! Well, of course it was because the segment was about dyslexia.
Lydia Alexander and Barbara Combs were our speakers, filling us in about things they learned at last week�s IDA conference in Atlanta.
For those interested in getting audio tape copies of sessions, Lydia and Barbara bought tapes they attended or were interested in, and are willing to make copies for those who will bring them an audio tape to put it on. I have a list of the sessions that they bought tapes for to share. If you want other tapes you can email [email protected] for the company Convention Recordings (727) 345-8288 or mail 6983 Sunset Drive South
St. Petersburg, FL 33707
Lydia attended sessions about new technology for dyslexics. She told us about several programs, although expensive, that schools could be encouraged to purchase to help ALL students with writing research papers:
WYNN- �What you Need Now� program is great for research papers, reads aloung to you, words are highlighted as you read. Schools can get a license for all computers. The cost $900 for an individual or $2000 for a school. A Curswell program was more expensive. For MAC computers there is a Paraphrase program that read aloud what you type in. Lydia really liked Texthelp, new since June, a voice recognition program with spell checker. This is available for less with a distributor in Atlanta called Dunamis and their website is www.dunamisinc.com you can email them at [email protected] This program costs $580 for home use, $265 for a school version, and $3000 for a school system licensing. Texthelp is voice activated, has a calculator, and has a school feature of a test mode for teachers, and also has a word prediction feature.
Barbara Combs told us about a session she attended based on a book THE LANDMARK METHOD FOR TEACHING ARTHIMETIC by CHRISTOPHER WOODIN. He is a teacher at Landmark School and uses dominoes to help teach math visually.
Barbara also told us about a session with Barbara Wilson, who uses the Orton Gillingham based WILSON LANGUAGE TRAINING. She suggests parents work at home with kids sounding out words by �finger tapping�, tapping one finger to the thumb per sound to break down the word.
Ruth O�Connor told us as parents to seek free reports from the national reading panel, 4th grade and up for a program called �put reading first�
We also talked about a book all parents of dyslexic kids in PUBLIC schools needs to read and absorb �FROM EMOTIONS TO ADVOCACY� by Pam and Pete Wright. You can go to the book website www.fetaweb.com or www.harborhouselaw.com.