Learning Disabilities - an educational video series with topics including reading, dyslexia, phonemic awareness, multisensory instruction, dyscalculia or math disabilities and ADD/ADHD

Here is a comprehensive series, drawing on current research from the National Institutes of Child Health, to understand and improve the teaching of all students at risk of not learning to read or do math.

Taped in public, private and parochial schools in New England, New York, Detroit and Texas, from large groups to one on one, these lively videos show how children can make the difficult leap from speaking to reading, writing, and spelling when good explicit, multisensory, systematic teaching, based on language structure, is taking place.

The students and teachers profiled on the tapes are as diverse as our population, the excellent teaching demonstrated takes place in schools as different as those in Detroit, Michigan and Greenwich, Connecticut. The series emphasizes common sense, not ideology. Although teaching methods come and go like fashion, these tapes show how to take the best of what works and apply it.

TOPICS OF TAPES

How to recognize and understand learning disabilities
Understanding explicit multisensory structured teaching and phonemic awareness
Explicit multisensory structured teaching demonstrated in a variety of classrooms, including whole language
Helping parents understand advocacy and assessments; improving parent-school communication
How ADD/ADHD connects to LD
The problem of dyscalculia and math disabilities

TAPE 1 : INTRODUCTION

Understanding learning disabilities through demonstration and description
Defines the spectrum of learning disabilities, with illustrations of what they look and sound like, how we know if a child is showing signs of LD. Clarifies dyslexia and ADD as distinct from other learning problems. The importance of phonological awareness and its effect on reading ability. (45 minutes)

TAPE 2 : THE TEACHING

What LD students need
A full explanation of explicit, multisensory, systematic teaching, based on language structure, demonstrated by a variety of teaching situations. What phonemes are. A kindergarten class doing exercises to teach phonemic awareness and to identify the lack of such awareness. Moving from invented spelling to regular spelling. (55 minutes)

Teaching children the code to unlock language
Showing children with LD or at risk of learning problems, mastering the structure of written language and moving out of special education. The advantages of early intervention. How the inclusion of explicit, multisensory, systematic teaching, based on language structure increases the value of whole language for all children. The economy of training teachers. Profiles of non-reading children becoming readers. (58 minutes)

TAPE 4: Children & Parents & Schools & Strengths

A moving account of how parents encounter LD problems in their children. Parent-school communication; the importance of parent advocacy; a close-up look at how schools can help. Understanding an assessment with Nancy Mather, Ed.D., University of Arizona; Louisa Cook Moats, Ed.D., Gloria Tannenbaum, Ph.D., Stressing the ability in children with learning disabilities.(45 minutes)

TAPE 5:ADD/ADHD/LD:

Understanding the connection
Views from medical professionals, including neurologist Martha Bridge Denckla, M.D., Johns Hopkins University Medical School, ADD specialist Betsy Busch, M.D., Tufts University Medical School, and parents, teachers and children on ADD/ADHD and how they create learning problems. (30 minutes)