The Balanced Literacy Diet: A Powerful Professional Development Resource to Support Regular and Special Education

Dr. Dale Willows and her team have created a free, comprehensive, multimedia, professional development website and a YouTube channel to support evidence-informed literacy education and special education.

This session will provide an overview of The Balanced Literacy Diet framework and a demonstration of how to navigate the wealth of resources available.

Overall, this session will provide classroom and special education teachers with a shared understanding of evidence-informed literacy education for students who find learning to read and write difficult.

Classroom, Special Education Teachers and Support Staff Learning Goals

• Understand what is meant by “effective literacy instruction” in elementary grades
• Discover hundreds of engaging, evidence-informed lesson plans and how-to-videos relating to:
  • Stages of Literacy Development, Motivation, Oral Language, English Language Learners (ELL), Knowledge Building, Concepts of Print, Writing Conventions, Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Spelling, Vocabulary, Reading Comprehension Strategies, Writing Process Strategies, Text Structure, Assessment
• Visit virtual classrooms to learn from expert teachers
• Learn how to find resources and strategies to address the needs of all students
• Learn about a framework for understanding reading and writing difficulties and disabilities
• Become familiar with a powerful resource that provides teaching strategies for supporting the literacy development of children with learning difficulties and disabilities
• Focus on research-informed practice using a 3-tier approach for supporting literacy education

Administrator Professional Learning Goals

• Consider why literacy must be the top curriculum priority in the primary grades
• Learn how to introduce this free resource to your school to build capacity in your staff and expand their knowledge of effective literacy education, classroom set up, literacy assessment, differentiated instruction, and special education for students with LDs

Parent Learning Goals

• Learn what children need in order to read and write
• Learn what exemplary literacy classrooms look like

About Dr. Dale

Dr. Willows is a Full Professor in the Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology at OISE, UofT. Her areas of specialization are language, literacy, and learning disabilities.

$10 for members
$15 for non-members
*Workshop fees are transferable but non-refundable. For more information visit: www.ldayr.org