Zero to Hero: Phonics Skills for Parents

Zero to Hero: Phonics Skills for Parents

Date: 27 Feb 2017 Monday

Time: 7PM - 9PM

Location: Level 1, Community Hub at The Dock, 912 Collins Street Docklands VIC 3008

Limited spots available - Early Bird: $55 (ends 16th Feb 5pm) General: $65

Workshop Overview

This workshop is not to be missed!!!!

Great news! In collaborations with the Learning Difference Convention, SPELD Vic has invited Prof. Tom Nicholson to be presenting for an additional workshop as a post convention presentation.

“Zero to Hero” is a comment made by a parent who felt that our phonics tuition had given their child a huge lift.

In this workshop we focus on helping the parent to become a tutor who can make a similar difference. The aim is to teach the basic phonics skills needed to help the child who has dyslexia or other learning difficulties.

One in five children experience difficulties with reading and writing but the dyslexic child has specific issues. The key issue for the dyslexic pupil is lack of phonics skills which interferes with the ability to decode difficult words, read quickly, spell well – and thus, write well. Parents are the child’s first teacher and when well trained in teaching phonics parents can help their child to solve their decoding problems. This short seminar will give parents an understanding of why the child struggles, how to trouble-shoot where the key problems are, and more importantly how to teach phonics well.

Parents are invited to bring along to the workshop an example of their child’s writing to share and facilitate discussion of phonics issues – but this is optional. We will not be able to cover all the skills needed in the short time available but we will be able to teach parents some effective basic strategies to get started as a phonics tutor at home.

This workshop will discuss strategies for filling gaps in phoneme-grapheme correspondence knowledge, and teaching syllable patterns and word parts/morphology, with a focus on patterned practice to build skills rather than teaching spelling rules.

The goals of the workshop are to enable the parent:

• To understand the pyramid of English and how it makes sense of English writing

• To understand that decoding is the key area where the dyslexic child struggles with reading and writing

• To feel confident that phonics tuition can produce positive and surprising results

• To understand how to administer the non-word Bryant test and how it can be used to troubleshoot reading and spelling problems

• To understand how to put together a scope and sequence of what decoding skills need to be taught

• To know how to construct a plan of phonics work

• To be able to teach strategies for spelling and decoding long words like acrobatic, banquet, construction, and physician

Presenter:

Prof Tom Nicholson (NZ)

Tom Nicholson is a Professor of Literacy Education at Massey University. He is a member of the Reading Hall of Fame. His PhD on reading won an international dissertation award. He has been a visiting scholar at Stanford University.

In 2016 he was a keynote speaker at the British Dyslexia Association conference in Oxford, England. He started his career as a high school teacher in Sydney, worked in Adelaide as a research officer, completed his PhD at The University of Minnesota, and since then has worked in three Universities in New Zealand: Waikato, Auckland, and Massey. He held a personal chair at The University of Auckland. He is married, lives in Auckland, likes to walk and sometimes goes jogging, likes reading, going to cafes, and looking at modern art.

Most recent books relevant to this workshop would be: NZ Dyslexia Handbook (NZCER Press, 2015), Phonics Handbook (Wiley, 2005), and Teaching Reading Vocabulary (NZCER Press, 2010). A new book due to come out in late 2017 with NZCER Press is on spelling and writing.

About the venue:

Community Hub at The Dock

912 Collins Street Docklands VIC 3008 (Wheelchair accessible)

Located right next to the newly built Library at The Dock.

Getting there by public transport (for more info visit http://ptv.vic.gov.au):

Tram

​​Routes 11, 35, 48 70, 75

Train

​Take any train to Southern Cross Station