The Wired For Reading Introductory course offers an engaging, quick, but deep exploration of linguistics as it applies to
teaching reading and spelling.  It simplifies English spelling patterns without compromising them,
thereby empowering students to fluidly break down words.  Students learn to connect speech to sounds, sounds to letters, and letters to meaning. 

Grounded in research, the Wired For Reading Introductory Course is organized and presented in four parts:

• Teacher Essentials
• Linguistic Foundation
• Core Phonics for ‘words that play fair’
• Word Study strategies for words that do not 

Teacher Essentials include:

• Explanations for the underlying processing problems that can create barriers to reading and spelling

• Defining ‘Response to Intervention’

• Exploring Baddeley’s model of the working memory

• Clarifying the context of English spelling patterns by providing a brief history of the English language.

• Descriptions of Wired For Reading's teaching pedagogy or philosophy, as well as the two 'scope and sequence' charts.  The first chart relates to the Teaching sequence and is presented visually in the Three-story House of English Overview.  The second chart relates to the learning sequence inspired by Bruner and is presented visually in The Learning Spiral.

Linguistic Foundations include:

• Studying relationships between speech and sounds, sounds and letter patterns, and meaning patterns in words and how these impact phonic patterns.  

• Building a speech-motor approach to teaching phonological awareness, creating a deep, strong and powerful foundation for reading and spelling.

• Learning kid-friendly terms for Linguistic concepts including Place, Manner, and Voice.

• Creating a ‘Vowel Key’ to track the 18 vowel sounds of the English language using multi-sensory techniques.

Research indicates that when teachers learn linguistics, the deep structure of English, they are better prepared to understand and respond to their students’ decoding and spelling errors.  (McCutchen, 1998; McCutchen, Green, Abbot, & Sanders, 2009).

Core Anglo Saxon includes:

• Exploring the core Anglo Saxon (Germanic) phonic patterns.  Rather than teaching rules to be memorized, you will learn phonic stories using art, music, drama, and laughter to make the patterns come alive.  

• Personifying patterns making them engaging, imaginative, and memorable. 

• Using stories woven together around common themes that highlight the interconnected relationships of English Orthography and Morphology in a multi-modal, multi-sensory way.  

• Attaching letter patterns to the vowel key so that students have one source to manage multiple spelling choices in the English language.

• Focusing on single syllable ‘root’ words to prepare the way for the multi-syllable, root-plus-suffix work explored more intensely in the Part 2 workshop.

Word Study includes:

• Discussing how multiple word origins create an awkward spelling puzzle, but it also gives us a tremendous comprehension advantage.  English loves to adopt eloquent words from all over the world, and each new immigrant word carries along its own spelling tradition.  Hence English is rich with words (and spelling choices).

• Exploring how ‘Quick Words’ (sight words) are problematic. 

• Delving into small grammar words used to glue more meaningful words together.  By themselves, these common, grammar words are not terribly meaningful, but they are terribly important.  

• Discovering how to imbue grammar words with as much meaning as possible to aid rapid recall (Wolf, 2008).

• Learning how to make non-phonetic words burn into the mind's eye using the best research based strategies  - color coding and mental imagery (Berninger, 2006).

In addition to large group discussion, participants work in small groups.  Most small groups will be guided by at least one ‘alum’, a participant repeating the class to deepen his or her skills.   The bulk of course time is spent on Linguistic Foundations and Core Anglo Saxon concepts.

The fun, drama, music, and stories continue at the Wired For Reading Intermediate course!  Now that you and your students have a strong foundation of phonological awareness and are able to decode single syllable words, it is time to move to multi-syllable word analysis.  You will learn two strategies to break down multi-syllable words by meaning and by sound, benefiting both reading and spelling.  We will also review and explore concepts from Introductory more deeply and share implementation stories.

The Intermediate Course is organized and presented in two parts:

•Deep, Targeted Review
•Combined Anglo Saxon

Deep, Targeted Review includes:

• Discussing the implementation of Part 1material;

• Celebrating implementation successes; 

• Problem solving challenges to implementation;

• Revisiting teacher-requested concepts from Part 1.

   
Combined Anglo Saxon includes:

• Combining Anglo Saxon based prefixes, roots and suffixes to form multi-syllable words;

• Understanding the deep structure of why we spell they way we do, promoting transfer. 

• Using awareness of syllable types to “yank” words into easier to read and spell chunks. Easily predict when to double a consonant or drop a silent e.

•  Discovering how prefix and suffix awareness breaks words into easier to read and spell chunks. 

•  Creating a suffix key to track the meaning and spelling of the most common Anglo Saxon based suffixes. 

•  Learning the meaning and spelling of the most common Anglo Saxon based prefixes using Adapted American sign to make them stick like glue. 

•  Enjoying memory-friendly and entertaining phonics stories, music, drama, and humor to clarify spelling patterns such as –es vs. –s, y to i, -ed or t/d, -le vs. –el.                        
• Applying meaning to clarify common multi-syllable spelling puzzles.

Are you ready to build from and move beyond phonological awareness and basic phonics?  Come and learn the secrets of spelling-bee champions and how to apply them in your teaching in powerful, engaging ways.  Delve into English’s treasure trove of words and word parts adopted from Latin and Greek based languages, each with its own spelling traditions and choices.  Professional development can be entertaining and informative. 


The Advanced Course is organized and presented in two parts:

•Teachers' Essentials
•Latin and Greek Morphology

Teachers’ Essentials includes:

• Demystifying reading research terminology

• Summarizing the history of the English language and how it affects spelling patterns

• Discussing reading-related brain functioning

• Exploring linguistic knowledge of vowel patterns, with an emphasis on how to identify and track vowels in multi-syllable words. 

Latin and Greek Morphology includes:

• Discovering the unique “jobs” of prefixes, roots, and suffixes in Latin and Greek based words

• Breaking Latin and Greek based words into parts by meaning

• Outlining strategies to glean the meaning of Latin & Greek prefixes and roots

• Using meaning to spell common Latin suffix ‘confusables’

• Attaching adapted American Sign Language to the most common Latin and Greek prefixes and roots

• Learning games and activities to practice and apply knowledge of prefixes, roots, and suffixes for reading, spelling, and vocabulary

• Creating advanced fluency packets to make skills effortless and automatic

• Holding students accountable to transfer skills to their free reading and writing so that they become proficient, comfortable readers and writers

• Applying methods that are friendly to the working memory

Designed for teachers, specialists, and parents working with children reading at a third grade reading level or higher, the Wired For Reading Advanced course stands alone.  You do not need to take the Introductory or Intermediate Courses to sign up.

Laura Rogan, a skilled reading therapist, adult educator, counselor, and consumer-translator of reading research, possesses a unique combination of experience in school, academic, and clinical settings.  She is recognized as a creative, and innovative educator, with a special ability to craft, and implement appropriate, engaging, and effective evidence based learning strategies.

Laura earned her Bachelor of Arts (Cum Laude) in Psychology with a minor in English at the University of California, Irvine, a Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology at the University of Colorado, Denver, and a Master of Education in School Psychology at the University of Washington.

As Laura worked her way through school, she held clinical and research positions at the Child Development Center at the University of Cal, Irvine; The Child Learning Disability and Neuro-psychology Clinic at the University of Denver; The Institute for Behavioral Genetics at the University of Colorado, Boulder; and The University of Washington Multidisciplinary Learning Disability Center. 

Prior to founding Wired For Reading, Laura Rogan, taught the Linguistic Remedies ℠ program to teachers for 12 years.  She has been working with children with learning differences and their parents for twenty years. Ms. Rogan herself has dyslexia.  She teaches Wired For Reading teacher courses, conducts in service workshops, served on the board of the Puget Sound branch of the International Dyslexia Association and still maintains her private practice of seventeen years.

Linguistic Remedies is a service mark of Remedies for Reading Disabilities, Inc.  Wired For Reading is not affiliated with Remedies for Reading Disabilities, Inc., its Linguistic Remedies programs, or Dr. Barbara Wise.  Except where noted, Laura Rogan and Wired For Reading are solely responsible for the content of this program.

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