Redwood's Go-To Resource List for Parents & Educators of Children with Dyslexia or other Literacy Struggles
Below are some of Redwood’s go-to favorite resources for parents and teachers of children who are struggling to learn how to read & write proficiently and/or who have a dyslexia diagnosis:
Websites:
1) Yale Center for Creativity & Dyslexia
3) International Dyslexia Association
Podcasts:
1) Hard Words: Why Aren't Kids Being Taught to Read?
2) At a Loss for Words: How a flawed idea is teaching millions of kids to be poor readers
3) Experts say widely used reading curriculum is failing kids
5) SeeHearSpeak
7) Teaching, Reading, and Learning: the Reading League
9) Glean’s Research to Practice
10) full PreFrontal The Louisa Moats on the Truth about Reading
Videos:
2) David Kilpatrick: Understanding Reading Development and Difficulties
3) The Science of Reading: An Overview by Dr. Jan Hasbrouck
4) Embracing Dyslexia: The Interviews Dr. Maryanne Wolf
5) The Reading Brain, Dr. Maryanne Wolf
Books for Parents:
1) Overcoming Dyslexia by Dr. Sally Shaywitz, 2nd Edition
2) Proust & The Squid and Reader Come Home: The Reading Brain in the Digital Age, by Dr. Maryanne Wolf
3) The Dyslexic Advantage by Fernette & Brock Eide
4) Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt (to be read out loud with your kids)
5) Looking for Heroes: One Boy, One Year, 100 Letters by Aidan A. Colvin (to be read out loud with your kids)
6) Reading in the Brain-The New Science of How we Read by Dr.Stanislas Dehaene
Articles:
1) Why are we still teaching reading the wrong way?, Emily Hanford
2) Structured Literacy Explained from the International Dyslexia Association
3) Hard by Important Words on Why So Many Kids Struggle to Read, Natalie Wexler
4) Why most readers are being taught to guess at words and why that hold them back, Natalie Wexler
5) How Spelling Supports Reading,Dr. Louisa Moats
6) Why Teach Spelling from the Center on Instruction
7) The Gap Between the Science on Kids and Reading and How it is Taught, NPR
8) Raising Readers Writers and Spellers: Bridging the Gap Between Science and Poor Readers, from Psychology Today
9) The Radical Case for Teaching Kids Stuff, The Atlantic
10) Leveling Charges against F+P, The Right to Read Project
11) How Spelling Supports Reading, by Louisa Moats in The American Federation of Teachers
12) Why Teacher Spelling, Council on Instruction
13) Getting Reading Right, Education Week Series
14)Mindshift Guide to Understanding Dyslexia
Social Media Handles:
5) Droppin Knowledge with Heidi
Workshops & Courses:
1) Redwood Talks (coming up on April 24th!)
2) Everyone Reading Illinois Annual Fall Conference (November 3rd & 4th, 2021)
4) LETRS
5) Building the Brain for Literacy
Below are some of Redwood’s go-to favorite resources for supporting children who are struggling with mathematics and/or who have a dyslexia/dyscalculia diagnosis:
1) Woodin Math (If an approach used in the classroom is not working for a student, try finding the same standard on Christopher Woodin’s Curriculum Bank. He may have an additional worksheet, video, or lesson to utilize to teach the same standard using a different means of instruction.)
2) Mastering the Basic Math Facts (This text provides strategies, activities, and additional intervention methods for helping students to strengthen their skills with multiplication and division facts. Note, there is also a version for supporting with addition and subtraction facts.)
3) Virtual Manipulatives (When applicable, a student can use virtual manipulatives on a tablet, rather than using physical manipulatives that could draw more attention to them or be more challenging to organize.)
4) Lesley University has free resources, games and activities for supporting mathematical understanding for all grade levels
5) Youcubed at Stanford University is an amazing site that provides activities listed under “Tasks” that can be selected by math topic and grade level.The site also has great educational articles, research, free courses, games, and apps.
6) Greg Tang Math - While there are other things on Greg’s website, what really stands out are the online games. Some games are designed to help solidify facts while others focus on strengthening conceptual understanding.
7) Nrich math is a wonderfully rich source for activities, interactive games, resources, and articles. There is an area designed for “primary pupils” and a topic list at the top of the homepage. You can also type something specific in the search bar and see what comes up.
8) Estimation 180 is a site devoted specifically to the important skill of estimation. It presents over 220 different estimation challenges to help students (and adults!) improve both their number sense and problem solving abilities.
9) Illuminations is a site run by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. It has interactives organized by grade level or math topics for children to play online. For students in third grade and above there is a link to “Calculation Nation,” which is a collection of games students can play online with people all over the world.
10) Free Math Apps is the Math Learning Center’s resource for free virtual math manipulatives. Students can use the online manipulatives for money, time, fractions, geometry and place value.
Below are some of Redwood’s go-to favorite resources for supporting children by literacy component:
To support Phonemic Awareness:
1) How many phonemes? by Redwood Literacy for Teachers Pay Teachers
2) How many graphemes? by Redwood Literacy for Teachers Pay Teachers
3) How many morphemes? by Redwood Literacy for Teachers Pay Teachers
4) How many syllables? by Redwood Literacy for Teachers Pay Teachers
5) How many words? by Redwood Literacy for Teachers Pay Teachers
To support with reading and spelling of High Frequency Words:
1) 150 Most Common HFW taglines by Redwood Literacy for Teachers Pay Teachers
2) Systematic Instruction on HFW by Redwood Literacy for Teachers Pay Teachers
3) HFW Tracker (aligned to 150 Words) by Redwood Literacy for Teachers Pay Teachers
4)Strategies for Teaching High Frequency Words, Dr. Maria Murray, The Reading League
5)Moving Beyond Flashcards: Strategies for Teaching HFW with Phoneme Graphemes Mapping
To support reading Fluency:
1) 3-part video series on how Orthographic Mapping Builds Fluency
Video 1: Rethinking Phonological Awareness
Video 2: Orthographic Mapping is a Critical Skill for Learning New Words
Video 3: Helping Older Students Master Phonemic Manipulation Skills
2) What is Orthographic Mapping and Why is it So Important?, Dr. Maria Murray, The Reading League
To support with building Vocabulary:
1) Bringing Words to Life by McKeown, Kucan, and Beck
2) Check out this post on vocabulary instruction written by Kait Feriante for Redwood Literacy’s blog
To Target Morphology:
1) Word Matrix Template by Redwood Literacy for Teachers Pay Teachers. Use this template to support reading interventions for students with dyslexia or other literacy struggles! This is a basic word matrix template that you can have on hand for quick teaching of new bases, prefixes, and suffixes.
2) Most Common Affixes Tracker by Redwood Literacy for Teachers Pay Teachers
3) The Importance of Morphological Awareness, Dr. Ken Apel
To support Comprehension:
1) Check out this parent guide from Redwood Literacy on how to build background knowledge at home
2)The Four Do’s and Don’ts When Teaching Reading Comprehension, Jane Oakhill
3) Live with the Author Interview from the International Literacy Association , Sonia Cabell and HyeJin Hwang on their article, “Building Content knowledge to Boost Comprehension in the Primary Grades”
4)Increasing Higher Level Language Skills to Improve Reading Comprehension, Tiffany Hogan
5) A Blueprint for Reading Comprehension Instruction, Nancy Hennessey
6) Language and Reading Research Consortium (LARRC) conducted a five-year study designed to substantially increase our understanding of language- and reading-comprehension development for children ages 4-8 years old (pre-kindergarten to grade 3). In total, 1,200 children in four states were followed longitudinally over five years. As part of the study, the LARRC team developed a 25-week curriculum supplement for children in grades pre-kindergarten to third grade designed to improve children’s language skills as a means to improving their reading comprehension: Let’s Know! (Pre-Kindergarten to Grade 3, English language) and Vamos a Aprender! (Pre-Kindergarten only, Bilingual Spanish-English). These supplements are available to download for free.
7)Promoting Adolescents’ Comprehension Text(from the Meadow Center), free sample lesson plans for grades 6-8
Resources for working with EL Students:
1) Literacy Foundations for English Learners: A Comprehensive Guide to Evidence-Based Instruction, by Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan. Chapter by chapter video guide to the book.
2) Structured Literacy Intervention for English Learners webinar with Elsa Cardenas-Hagan
To support with Written Expression:
1) The Writing Revolution by Hochman and Wexler
2) Writing Our World by Redwood Literacy, our written expression curriculum sold at Teachers Pay Teachers
3)Syntax Matters: The Link Between Sentence Writing and Sentence Comprehending, William Van Cleave
To support with Handwriting:
1) Check out this blog post by Ruthie Swibel on handwriting
Resources for supporting with Social-Emotional Growth for students with dyslexia and other learning differences:
1) Discover Dyslexia Curriculum by Redwood Literacy for Teachers Pay Teachers
2) Check out this blog post by Kristen McShane on helping students understand their learning strengths