Participants learn about reading research, dyslexia, appropriate student identification and placement, program implementation, progress monitoring, scheduling, and creating a successful learning environment. Principles of language structure and how to teach language with direct, multisensory methods are demonstrated and practiced during the course. Participants explore the standard 10-part Wilson® Lesson Plan and practice planning and delivering a lesson while receiving modeling and feedback from a Wilson® Credentialed Trainer during the course. Online registration available here.

Upon completion of the course, participants will be able to:

• Define dyslexia and describe common characteristics.
• Explain the process of identifying appropriate students and placing them in the Wilson Reading System®.
• Understand the principles of instruction: explicit, sequential and cumulative, engaging multiple learning modalities with multisensory techniques, repetition, and feedback.
• Create an optimal learning environment, prepare a lesson plan, and practice techniques.
• Understand the key components of instruction and presentation of lessons in three blocks
  • Block 1 – Word Study/Foundational Reading Skills: Lesson Plan Parts 1-5
    • Phonemic Awareness, Decoding, Vocabulary, High Frequency Word Reading, Single-Word Accuracy/Automaticity, Phrasing/Prosody, Fluency and Comprehension at the Sentence Level
  • Block 2 – Spelling/Foundational Writing Skills: Lesson Plan Parts 6-8
    • Phoneme Segmentation, Encoding (Spelling), English Spelling Rules, High Frequency Word Spelling, Vocabulary, Concept Mark Up, Sentence-Level Punctuation and Proofreading
  • Block 3 – Fluency/Comprehension: Lesson Plan Parts 9-10
    • Vocabulary, Listening/Silent and Oral Reading Fluency and Comprehension, Narrative and Informational Text

Prerequisite
None

Duration
3 consecutive days (16.5 hours)

One graduate credit (optional) is available through Fitchburg State University, Fitchburg, MA upon completion of course requirements. Please see Process for Graduate Credit for details.

Participants may enroll in WRS® Level I Certification or the online course WRS® Intensive Instruction for the Non-Responsive Reader (Steps 1-6) within five years of completing a WRS Introductory Course.