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HomeCommunitySchoolsPublic Conference on Literacy and Dyslexia to Be Held at UVI Campuses

Public Conference on Literacy and Dyslexia to Be Held at UVI Campuses

The Dyslexia Foundation in partnership with the Virgin Islands Department of Education/Division of Special Education, Good Hope Country Day School and the V.I. University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (VIUCEDD) invite the public to a conference on Literacy and Dyslexia set for 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., Saturday, June 18, at the Great Hall of the University of the Virgin Islands, St. Croix campus. The conference will also be live streamed in Room 110 of the Business Building on UVI’s St. Thomas campus.
The conference’s goals are to teach attendees to understand how literacy develops neurologically, and the importance and value of explicit instruction in reading; to develop a framework for overall literacy instruction to guide classroom instruction for teaching reading and for identifying and working with struggling readers; and to provide literacy instruction that embraces language and dialectal differences.
Conference speakers will include Dr. Peggy McCardle, Dr. Joan Mele McCarthy and Dr. Julie Washington.
“It is clearly documented that given a multisensory, explicit, direct approach to teaching the underlying structures of language, such as the Orton–Gillingham Approach, that dyslexics can and do learn to read and spell to a level commensurate with their own abilities,” said Wendy F. Canning F/AOGPE, language learning specialist at Good Hope Country Day School.
The conference is free and open to educators, administrators, parents, persons with dyslexia as well as those interested in learning more about dyslexia and literacy. To register online, visit www.viucedd.org and click on the ‘events’ tab.
According to The International Dyslexia Association, dyslexia is “characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition, and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge.”
Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability that affects one in five individuals. It is hereditary, with the severity ranging from mild to severe. People often think those with dyslexia see letters backwards, but, in fact, it has nothing to do with how they see but with how they manipulate and process language.
 

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