The Slingerland® Summer School at the Lexicon Reading Center

The Slingerland® Summer School was conducted at the Lexicon Reading Center by Professor Nancy Cushen White, Ed.D from 21st August to 20th September 2011. All the participants profited greatly by the program.

It covered a lot of topics like handwriting, the written language, phonic rules etc. It also talked about the history and philosophical background of Dyslexia and also about the research that is being done in this field.

• Introduction
• The Slingerland® Approach
• The Trainer: Professor Nancy Cushen White Ed.D
• Program Overview

Introduction
The staff at Lexicon Reading Center reflects the multicultural population of Dubai; they come from a variety of countries where English is the major medium of instruction. All teachers at Lexicon Reading Center have at least a post-graduate qualification in remedial teaching. In an endeavour to provide our students with the most advanced, scientifically based help with their learning differences, Lexicon Reading Center decided to further educate all our teachers in the approach that includes all the components proven by solid research to be very effective in reading and writing remediation, the Slingerland® approach.

Slingerland Summer School at Lexicon Reading Center
Professor Cushen White met our students during her May visit and selected a group of our students to participate in the Summer School. The selection was based on an initial screening, suitability for the program (age, learning profile etc.) and availability during the summer holidays. The program was conducted from the 21st of August to the 20th of September 2011.

All participants profited greatly from the program, although it was really hard work (3 hours for students and 9 hours for teachers daily)! The parents had the chance to interact with Professor Cushen White during a parent presentation where she outlined the scientific knowledge about Dyslexia and the Slingerland approach to remediation. Professor Cushen White also met the parents individually at the end of the Summer School to discuss each student’s progress and make relevant recommendations.

The Trainer: Professor Nancy Cushen White, Ed.D
University of California, San Francisco

Lexicon Reading Center is privileged to have Professor Cushen White Ed.D as our Senior Consultant. Professor Cushen White is conducting and supervising the training and accreditations of our teachers in the Slingerland® Approach.

Nancy Cushen White, Ed.D, Clinical Professor, is a teacher and learning disabilities specialist in the Division of Adolescent Medicine of the University of California San Francisco. She has worked as a classroom teacher and special education teacher for San Francisco Unified School District; she was the pilot teacher for the special day class for gifted students with specific learning disabilities (dyslexia) in the Department of Special Education-SFUSD.

More on Prof Nancy Cushen White

The Slingerland Approach

The Slingerland®Approach is an adaptation of the Orton-Gillingham method. Thousands of teachers throughout the United States, and in Canada, Australia, and the Philippines have received Slingerland training. This structured, sequential, simultaneous, multisensory teaching approach is designed to help dyslexic students and other struggling readers with speaking, reading, writing and spelling.

Comprehensive Slingerland® Teacher Training Course Description:

• Multisensory structured language instructional techniques for speaking, listening, reading decoding,reading comprehension, spelling, handwriting, and written expression
• Daily demonstration of teaching approach by a master teacher with a group of children in a classroom setting
• Daily practicum opportunity for teacher participants to utilize newly-learned multisensory structured language strategies while working with one or two students each day in supervised one-hour tutorial sessions
• Daily lecture period by master teachers on history, philosophy, rationale, and background information related to use of multisensory structured language strategies
• Instruction in explicit strategies to develop vocabulary, promote fluency, and improve reading comprehension
• Orientation and overview of screening, testing, and evaluation techniques for initial identification as well as assessment of student progress
• Daily writing of lesson plans with written feedback from master teachers that can be used for later reference
• Hints for teachers interested in using approach with students in various educational settings: classroom,small group, individual, educational therapy, or academic language therapy
• Comprehensive instruction in the logic and structure of English [phonology-phonics-morphology-orthography-etymology-syntax-grammar]