LD Conferences

		LD National and Subdivision Conferences Next Conference Philadelphia, PA: 24 & 25 Oct. 2008 Previous Conferences San Antonio, TX: Fall 2007 San Francisco, CA: Fall 2006 Charleston, SC: Fall 2005 Orlando: November 2004 Nashville: November 2003 Pittsburgh: September 2002 Louisville DLD Showcase 2007

Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice
A Conference for Teachers of Students with Learning Disabilities
November 1st and 2nd, 2007
Sheraton Gunter Hotel
San Antonio, Texas

We're excited about our conference program! As always, the DLD Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice Conference includes workshop-length sessions on topics that are relevant to teachers and administrators working with students with learning disabilities.

For a brochure in PDF format, click here.

Students: Learn how to get an award to help pay the costs of
attending. Click here

How to Register

There are two ways to register:

1. To print a form for on-site registration, click here.
2. To register online with a credit card, click here.

If you have any questions, please contact our Conference Registrar.

Registration Fees

By September 20, 2007
Registration for DLD members		$185
Registration for all others		$205
After September 20, 2007
Registration for DLD members		$205
Registration for all others		$225

Hotel Information

To reserve a room at the Sheraton Gunter Hotel, call 1-888-999-2089 and identify yourself as a participant of the Division for Learning Disabilities Conference. You can also reserve a room online. Conference rates are $129.00 for both a single and a double. An additional charge of $10 will apply for extra persons. These rates are guaranteed until October 10, 2007. A limited number of rooms are available so please reserve your room early.

The Sheraton Gunter Hotel is located at 205 East Houston Street in San Antonio and is a short walk from the Riverwalk, The Alamo, and the River City Mall.

Conference Schedule

About the Sessions

Thursday Morning (TM) Sessions
Session Number	Presenters	Description
TM1	Presenter: Susan Osborne	Self-Monitoring: Using Attention, Academic Productivity, and Emotional/Behavioral Applications This workshop provides an introduction to research-supported self-monitoring strategies that teachers can use to address problems that often characterize pupils with LD and to help these individuals develop greater self-awareness and self-management skills. Procedures for evaluating intervention effectiveness and making data-based instructional decisions will be included. Grade level: 2-12. Level: Beginner/Intermediate. Materials: Provided.
TM2	Presenter: Rollanda O'Connor	Teaching Students to Read Words: Effective Strategies for Students with Reading Disabilities The purpose of this session is to describe and model well researched, specific strategies for students with LD in Grades K-4 who have difficulty reading words, from the beginnings of decoding through multi-syllable words and vocabulary development. Participants will learn instructional features that bring about rapid improvement for students with reading disabilities and finish this session with practical knowledge about how to stimulate the critical understandings that underpin reading acquisition and promote continued progress in reading. Grade level: K-4. Level: Beginning and Intermediate. Materials: Provided.
TM3	Presenter: Charles Hughes	Evidence-based Practices Impacting the Performance of Adolescents with LD in General Education Classrooms The purpose of this session is to present the results of a comprehensive review of published research examining the impact of interventions on the academic performance of adolescents with LD in general education classrooms. Each intervention will be described and an example provided. Additionally, information about implementation resources will be included. Unlike many other sessions at the conference, the goal of this presentation is to provide an overview (breadth) of a variety of techniques rather than detailed training (depth) on a specific topic/approach. Grade Level: 6-12. Level: Beginning. Materials: Provided.
TM4	Presenter: Susan Gurganus	Adapting General Education Mathematics Programming for Students with Learning Disabilities This session will present a research-based planning strategy for adapting general education lessons, whether from teacher-developed units, textbooks, or other curricular materials. The strategy offers a way to provide standards-based instruction to students with LD, not simply accommodations or an alternative or watered-down curriculum. Participants will practice the strategy with K-12 materials used by teachers in the presenter's field studies. Grade Level: K-12. Knowledge Level: Beginning. Materials: Provided.
TM5	Presenter: Laura Saenz	Introduction to Reading Progress Monitoring in Spanish The purpose of this session is to introduce procedures for monitoring the reading progress of kindergarten through third grade Spanish-speaking students. Participants will learn how to administer, score and interpret Spanish benchmark and progress monitoring assessments. Additionally, participants will become familiar with available Spanish progress monitoring tools. Grade Level: K-3. Level: Beginning. Materials: Indicadores Dinamicos del Exito en la Lectura.
Thursday Afternoon (TA) Sessions
Session Number	Presenters	Description
TA1	Presenter: Linda Mason	Self-Regulated Strategy Development Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities: Writing to Persuade An evidence-based practice for students with LD, Self-Regulated Strategy Development Instruction for Persuasive Writing will be described in this session. The presentation will include methods for supporting students' strategy use and self-regulation throughout the writing process. Adaptations for instruction and materials to meet the needs of students with diverse learning problems will be discussed. Session participants will receive support materials samples as well as information for free web access to lesson plans. Grade Level: 2-12. Level: Beginning. Materials: Provided.
TA2	Presenters: Margo Mastropieri and Tom Scruggs	Improving Student Performance in Reading, Memory, Motivation, and Content Areas: Results of Recent Research This presentation highlights strategies based on recent research design to help students perform better in school. An overview of recent research conducted using strategies for improving reading, memory, motivation, and content areas in science and social studies will be presented. Research examples illustrating the use of differentiated instruction, peer mediation, and curriculum enhancement will be highlighted. Strategies will be demonstrated and research findings will be discussed with implications for practice and future research. Grade Level: K-12. Level: Beginning. Materials: Provided.
TA3	Presenter: Anne Graves	Intensive Small Group Instruction in Reading for Middle School English Learners: A University/School Partnership The purpose of this session is to present the results of two studies of the effectiveness of reading instruction for 6th grade English learners. An overview of the study, the procedures, and the results will be presented at the beginning of the session. The majority of the session will be spent giving descriptions of the interventions including student reactions and adaptations. Examples and practice opportunities for participants will be a highlight of the session. Grade Level: Middle School. Level: Beginning. Materials: Provided.
TA4	Presenters: Pamela Stecker and Kristen McMaster	Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) in Reading in Grades 2-6 Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) is a research-validated, classwide peer tutoring method designed for supplemental reading practice. Typically conducted several times weekly for about 30 minutes, PALS Reading provides opportunities for students to read aloud, retell, summarize, and predict, while receiving immediate feedback from peers. Teacher's pair stronger and weaker readers, but all students change roles and have opportunities to serve as both coaches and readers. The PALS version of peer tutoring was developed by Doug and Lynn Fuchs and colleagues at Vanderbilt University and was awarded the U.S. Dept. of Education's Best Practice status in 2001. PALS enhances reading skills across a broad range of learners, encourages positive peer interactions, and increases engaged time on task. In this session, participants learn to implement PALS and discuss issues related to schoolwide implementation. Grade Level: 2-6. Level: Beginning. Materials Required: PALS Manual ($35.00). Please order the manual by going to: http://kc.vanderbilt.edu/pals/ordering/default.html
TA5	Presenter: Yvonne Bui	The Demand Writing Instructional Model: Enhancing Students' Writing Performance on Statewide Writing Assessments This session will focus on a writing instruction model that teaches upper elementary students with and without disabilities how to write personal narrative essays. The session includes lessons on the Six Traits of Writing, responding to writing prompts, pre-writing planning, sentence writing, paragraph writing, theme writing, and editing strategies. Grade level: 4-8. Level: Beginning. Materials: Fundamentals of Sentence Writing Strategy: Instructors Manual and Student Materials ($29.00).
Friday Morning (FM) Sessions
Session Number	Presenters	Description
FM1	Presenter: Nancy Cushen White	What a Difference a Morpheme Can Make Differences between good and poor readers and spellers are associated with significant differences in sensitivity to word structure at the morphological level. This session will demonstrate strategies for using knowledge of English language morphology and etymology to decode and spell. Participants will learn the similarities and differences in bases, roots and stems. Different functions of inflectional and derivational suffixes will be shown. Chameleon prefixes will be explained. Anglo-Saxon, Latin, and Greek layers of English will be described. Grade levels 3-12. Level: Beginning/Intermediate. Materials: Provided.
FM2	Presenter: William Therrien	Implementation of a Combined Reading Fluency and Text Comprehension Intervention This presentation details how the validated strategies of repeated reading and question generation can be combined into a supplemental reading intervention entitled Reread-Adapt and Answer-Comprehend (RAAC). Participants will learn how to implement the RAAC intervention with students with reading difficulties. Grade Level: 1-8. Level: Beginning. Materials: Provided.
FM3	Presenter: Steve Graham	Evidence-based Practices in Writing for Students with Learning Disabilities This session presents scientifically supported practices for teaching writing to students with learning disabilities. This includes effective practices for the general education classroom (tier-one prevention) and more specialized instruction (tiers two/three remediation) for students with LD and other struggling writers. These practices are drawn from recent meta-analysis and syntheses of experimental, single-subject, and qualitative (with exceptional teachers) studies. Grade level: 1-12. Level: All. Materials: Provided.
FM4	Presenters: Todd Busch, Erica Lembke, & Mitchell Yell	Curriculum-Based Measurement in Reading: Using Data to Inform Instruction and IEP Development This session will introduce Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) and its use in reading. Participants will learn how to monitor student performance in reading and make instructional decisions based on student data. Additionally, participants will learn to use CBM data to write legally appropriate IEP goals and objectives. Grade Level: 1-6. Level: Beginning. Materials: Provided.
FM5	Presenters: Paul Riccomini & Kimberly Bright	Analyzing Students' Mathematical Errors: Instructional Implications The purpose of this session is to provide a framework and general guidelines to review, identify, and provide corrective instruction for mathematical errors. Effective mathematics teachers must identify specific errors, analyze their sources, and provide specific instruction to correct student errors. This session will provide examples and demonstrations of error analysis procedures for mathematics. Participants will learn about systematic and commonly occurring mathematical errors in students' problem solutions. Instructional recommendations and implications for the use of error analysis procedures for both general and special education teachers are described. Grade level: 3-12. Level: Beginner. Materials: Provided.
Friday Afternoon Sessions
Session Number	Presenters	Description
FA1	Presenter: Shannon Gormley	Delivering Linguistically Informed Reading Instruction to Students with Learning Disabilities The purpose of this session is to provide educators with a deeper understanding of language essentials necessary to deliver research-based reading instruction to students with learning disabilities. The scope and sequence of the speech sounds of English will be presented in an interactive and engaging format. In addition, participants will learn techniques to remediate phonological core reading deficits in children using oral-motor feedback techniques. Participants will discover ways to use this new knowledge to make instructional decisions and analyze student reading and spelling errors. Grade Level: K-3. Level: Beginning. Materials Required: Picture Cards and Letter Tiles: ($24).
FA2	Presenters: Karen R. Harris, Mary Brindle, and Karin Sandmel	"Marconi Invented the Television for People who Couldn't Afford Radios": Teaching Students with LD Writing Strategies Children with LD and others who struggle with writing need explicit, intensive instruction and support not only in the development of skills, but also in developing composition strategies, self-regulation of the writing process, and positive attitudes about themselves as writers. Our focus will be on the using the Self-Regulated Strategy Development model in the classroom for all students. Grade Level: 2nd-6th. Level: Beginning. Materials: Provided.
FA3	Presenter: David Scanlon	The ORDER Routine: For Comprehending Content-Area Lessons The ORDER Routine aligns higher order skills with systematic procedures. To check and summarize learning of discrete facts and overall comprehension, students are guided in identifying key lesson content and its expository relationships. They learn to graphically represent what they know. The products of the routine include improved comprehension and a device useful for reference and further studying. The routine is integrated with content-area teaching and may be adapted into a personal strategy. Grade Level: 6th through adult. Level: Beginning. Materials Required: ORDER Routine Manual (12.00).
FA4	Presenter: Karen Rooney	Independent Strategies for Efficient Study Knowing how to study is an important skill for the older student. This session will present strategies that have been shown to improve grades by one to three letter grades without any other intervention. The purpose of the program is to empower the student but can also be used during instruction. Strategies for reading, writing, spelling, math, foreign language and note taking will be presented and participants will leave with the knowledge to implement the strategies immediately. Grade Level: 6-12. Level: All. Materials Required: Software and Manual (PC): ($60).
FA5	Presenter: Judy Engelhard	Using Word Building to Jump Start Early Reading Development This session offers practitioners systematic word building procedures that lead to the development of early reading decoding skills. Explicit instruction in phonemic awareness, letter names, phonics (alphabetic principle), and vowel patterns is provided by connecting these early reading skills through "word building," beginning with concrete (objects), then pictorial (pictures), and finally orthographic representations (letters) of words. Grade Level: PreK-2. Level: All. Materials: Provided.

How to Register

There are two ways to register:

1. To print a form for on-site registration, click here.
2. To register online with a credit card, click here.

Presenters

Kimberly Bright is currently Assistant Professor of Teacher Education/Special Education at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. Prior to entering higher education, Kimberly served as a Director of Special Education and a teacher of students with learning disabilities. Kimberly has served as President of Pennsylvania's Association Council for Exceptional Children.

Yvonne Bui is an Associate Professor in the Department of Learning and Instruction at the University of San Francisco. She has been the Chair of the Cultural and Linguistic Diversity committee for DLD. Dr. Bui is also the Project Director of a federally-funded personnel preparation grant that prepares special educators to teach students with mild to moderate disabilities from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in low-income and urban settings.

Todd Busch is an Assistant Professor in the Special Populations Department at Minnesota State University, Mankato. His research interests include student progress monitoring and secondary reading. He is currently a trainer for the National Center on Progress Monitoring.

Judy B. Engelhard, Ed.D., is the Special Education Program Coordinator and Associate Professor at Coastal Carolina University. She is also Professor Emerita at Radford University. She has served on national boards for several professional organizations including the Division for Learning Disabilities. Her professional interests are in specific learning disabilities, reading instruction and remediation, teacher quality, and public policy.

Steve Graham is the Curry Ingram Professor of Literacy at Vanderbilt University. His research focuses on identifying the factors that contribute to writing development and writing difficulties, developing and validating effective instructional procedures for teaching writing, He is the current editor of Exceptional Children and the author of the Handbook of Writing Research, Handbook of Learning Disabilities, Writing Better, and Making the Writing Process Work. Steve also authored Writing Next: Effective Strategies to Improve Writing of Adolescents in Middle and High School.

Shannon Gormley is an Assistant Professor of Exceptional Education at Buffalo State College in Buffalo NY. She is the secretary for DLD and is currently an assistant editor for New York State's CEC journal Exceptional Individuals.

Anne Graves is Professor and Chair of Special Education at San Diego State University. She is a past board member of DLD and has served for many years on the ALERT Committee that focused on publishing a series of evidence-based practice pieces. She is one of the principal investigators of a federally-funded grant examining the effects of intensive small group reading instruction in middle school on students with and without learning disabilities.

Susan Gurganus is Professor of Special Education at the College of Charleston and a past treasurer of DLD. She is author of the book Teaching Math to Students with Learning Problems (Allyn & Bacon, 2007) and has been a classroom teacher in general and special education (grades 3 through 12), state-level consultant, and college professor in her 31-year career.

Karen R. Harris is Curry-Ingram Chair of Special Education and Literacy at Vanderbilt University, Department of Special Education. She has taught kindergarten and 4th grade, as well as elementary and secondary students with ADHD, LD, and behavioral/emotional difficulties. Author of over 100 scholarly publications, she is co-author of the book: Writing Better: Teaching Writing Processes and Self-Regulation to Students with Learning Problems, and is currently Editor of the Journal of Educational Psychology.

Mary Brindle and Karin Sandmel are doctoral students and former teachers who have had extensive experience with SRSD.

Charles Hughes is Professor of Special Education at Penn State and an Adjunct Senior Scientist at the KU-CRL. He is a Past-President of DLD and is currently Editor of Learning Disabilities Research and Practice. He is the principal investigator of a federally-funded project examining effective classroom-level interventions that impact academic performance of students with LD in general education classrooms.

Erica Lembke is Assistant Professor in the Department of Special Education at the University of Missouri. Her research interests include progress monitoring and development of reading and math intervention and she is currently a trainer for the National Center on Progress Monitoring.

Linda Mason is an Assistant Professor of Special Education an Affiliate Faculty of the Children, Youth, and Families Consortium at the Pennsylvania State University. She conducts federally-funded research on self-regulated strategy instruction for reading comprehension and writing for elementary and middle school students with high-incidence disabilities.

Margo A. Mastropieri is Professor of Special Education at George Mason University in the Graduate School of Education. Her current research interests include strategies to facilitate learning for students with special needs including comprehension strategies, mnemonic strategies, and strategies to facilitate content area learning. She was awarded, with Tom Scruggs, the Council for Exceptional Children's Outstanding Research Award in 2006.

Kristen McMaster is Assistant Professor of Special Education at the University of Minnesota. Her research interests include developing effective interventions for children at risk for or identified as having disabilities that affect their learning in the areas of reading and written expression. She is a co-investigator of a federally-funded project examining the scaling up of Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS), including investigating levels of training and support needed for teachers to successfully implement and sustain PALS over time.

Rollanda O'Connor is Professor of Special Education at the University of California at Riverside, and Vice-President of DLD. She has conducted numerous reading intervention studies in special and general education settings. Her longitudinal studies of intervention led to the development of Ladders to Literacy (2005) for kindergarten students at risk for reading problems and Teaching Word Recognition (2007), which describes effective strategies for students with LD in Grades K-4.

Susan Osborne is a past president of DLD. She is an Associate Professor of Special Education at North Carolina State University where she serves as Coordinator of the Graduate Program in Special Education. Dr. Osborne teaches graduate courses and writes in the areas of learning and attention disabilities.

Paul Riccomini is an Assistant Professor at Clemson University. He taught mathematics to students with learning disabilities in self-contained and general education classrooms at the middle and high school level. Currently, he teaches a variety of undergraduate courses in the area of special education and graduate courses focusing on including students with disabilities in general education classrooms. His research interests include effective math instruction for students with disabilities, instructional technology applications, and dropout prevention strategies.

Karen J. Rooney, currently the President of DLD, is director of Educational Enterprises, Inc., in Richmond, Virginia. She provides direct services to children, adolescents and adults with learning disabilities and attention disorders as well as consultation/training to parents, teachers, and mental health professionals

Laura Saenz is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas Pan American and is trainer for the National Center on Student Progress Monitoring. As a special education teacher, she worked with Spanish-speaking students with learning disabilities and she currently teaches graduate courses on the culturally and linguistically diverse exceptional child.

David Scanlon is an Associate Professor of Special Education in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. He conducts research on strategic approaches to content-area learning and literacy for adolescents and young adults with LD. He also researches effective literacy interventions for children with Asperger Syndrome. Dr. Scanlon is formerly an assistant scientist at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning.

Tom Scruggs is Director of the Ph.D. in Education program and a Professor at George Mason University. His research interests include research synthesis and strategies to facilitate content area learning for students with special needs. He is Co-editor of the research annual, Advances in Learning and Behavioral Disabilities (1992-present).

Pamela Stecker is a Professor at Clemson University. Her research interests and work with preservice and practicing teachers focus on academic interventions and the use of progress monitoring tools for enhancing instructional planning. While a doctoral student at Vanderbilt University, Pam worked under Lynn and Doug Fuchs and helped to couple progress monitoring procedures with Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) to better address academic diversity. Currently, Pam serves as the Chair of DLD's Professional Development, Standards, and Ethics Committee.

William Therrien is an Assistant Professor of Special Education at the University of Iowa. Prior to working in academia, he was a special educator in grades K through 12. His research and professional interests include learning disabilities, behavioral disorders, and academic instruction for students with cognitive disabilities.

Nancy Cushen White is Associate Clinical Professor at the University of California-San Francisco in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Adolescent Medicine, a Program Specialist for the San Francisco Unified School District and a certified Educational Therapist. She is also a past member of the Board of Directors, International Dyslexia Association.

Mitchell Yell is a Professor at the University of South Carolina. His research interests include legal issues in special education, school-wide positive behavior support, and progress monitoring.