Timothy Shanahan
University of Illinois at Chicago

This presentation examined what is meant by the term “disciplinary literacy” and how disciplinary literacy differs from content-area literacy in terms of purposes, research base, and recommendations for instruction. It also stretched out a developmental continuum showing where disciplinary literacy enters the picture and how it connects to other, and usually earlier developing, aspects of literacy learning. Also, it specified the kinds of things that students need to learn to read math, science, literature, and history in ways that are truly disciplinary.

Pat Roberts
U.S Senator, R-Kan.

Bill James
2010 Distinguished Alumnus

Linnea C. Ehri
Distinguished Professor, CUNY Graduate Center

Vocabulary learning is central to reading ability and academic achievement. Vocabulary researchers and educators have viewed its essence as a process of associating the pronunciations and meanings of words in memory, and they have paid little attention to the contribution of spelling. Dr. Ehri reviewed theory and evidence showing that once children become literate, they retain the spellings of words bonded to their pronunciations and meanings in memory when they learn to read words. She presented two studies that address whether exposing second- and fifth-graders to the spellings of vocabulary words enhances their memory for pronunciations and meanings of the words and whether those with better spelling ability benefit more. Also, she mentioned a study examining whether having students read new vocabulary words aloud helps them learn the words better than reading the words silently. Implications for enhancing vocabulary learning and instruction were explained.

ABOUT OUR GUEST SPEAKER

Linnea Ehri received her Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. She was a professor at the University of California, Davis, for many years before moving to the Graduate Center of the City University of New York as a distinguished professor. She holds appointments in the Educational Psychology and the Speech Language and Hearing Sciences programs. She has received research awards from the American Educational Research Association, the International Reading Association, the National Reading Conference, and the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading. She has held elective offices in AERA, NRC, and SSSR. She is a member of the Reading Hall of Fame. Dr. Ehri served on the National Reading Panel, which was commissioned by the U.S. Congress to report on research-based methods of teaching reading effectively to elementary students. She has received federal research grants from NICHD and the Office of Education. Her research and teaching are focused on the cognitive and linguistic processes involved in learning to read and spell words, to read and comprehend text, early precursors of success, sources of difficulty in acquiring these processes, and the forms of instruction that facilitate learning. She has written more than 120 scholarly publications on language learning and literacy.

Read more here: http://www.kucrl.org/presentations/details/don-deshlers-testimony-regarding-esea-reauthorization/

Don Deshler
Williamson Family Distinguished Professor of Special Education, University of Kansas

Doug Fuchs
Professor and Nicholas Hobbs Chair in Special Education and Human Development, Peabody College, Vanderbilt University

In recent years, the role of special educators as experts who work with the most difficult to teach students has become blurred as schools move toward a new continuum of general education placements and services. Dr. Fuchs led a discussion (via video conference) about response to intervention, the role of special education, and the need for the profession to return to its historic mission.

ABOUT OUR GUEST SPEAKER

Dr. Fuchs is co-director of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Reading Clinic. He has been principal investigator of 35 federally sponsored research grants focusing on the development of pre-referral interventions, peer-assisted learning strategies in reading and math, curriculum-based measurement procedures, and methods of reintegrating students with high-incidence disabilities into mainstream settings. Dr. Fuchs’s research interests include instruction of students at risk for school failure because of disability or poverty; peer-mediated learning; classroom assessment; school improvement and school reform; urban education; and special education policy.

This session encouraged dialogue on the multiple meanings of “strategies” as used in content area classes. Issues and questions were include:

• domain general vs. domain specific strategies
• clarifying definitions to achieve common understandings
• deep structure reasoning strategies that could bridge the gap
• learning and instructional implications in content classes