LD Conferences

		LD National and Subdivision Conferences Next Conference Philadelphia, PA: 24 & 25 Oct. 2008 Previous Conferences San Antonio, TX: Fall 2007 San Francisco, CA: Fall 2006 Charleston, SC: Fall 2005 Orlando: November 2004 Nashville: November 2003 Pittsburgh: September 2002 Louisville DLD Showcase 2007

Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice
A Conference for Teachers of Students with Learning Disabilities
October 24 and 25, 2008
Sheraton Society Hill
Philadelphia, PA

We're excited about our conference program! As always, the DLD Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice Conference includes workshop-length sessions on topics that are relevant to teachers and administrators working with students with learning disabilities.

For a brochure in PDF format, click here.

How to Register

There are two ways to register:

1. To print a form for mail-in registration, click here.
2. To register online with a credit card, click here.

If you want to check whether your registration has been received, click here, then enter your name and click search; if your registration is in the data base, you'll see your name, city, etc. If you have any questions, please contact our Conference Registrar.

Registration Fees

By September 20, 2008 Extended to September 30th, 2008
Registration for DLD members		$195
Registration for all others		$225
After September 30, 2008
Registration for DLD members		$220
Registration for all others		$250

Hotel Information

To reserve a room at the Sheraton Society Hill, call (215) 238-6000 and identify yourself as a participant of the Division for Learning Disabilities Conference. You can also reserve a room online. Conference rates are $179.00 for both a single and a double. An additional charge of $20 will apply for extra persons. These rates are guaranteed until October 6, 2008; after that time, the hotel may charge a higher rate. A limited number of rooms are available so please reserve your room early.

The Sheraton Society Hill is located at 1 Dock Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Professional Development Credit

Pennsylvania teachers will be able to earn Act 48 credit for attending the conference. We will have certificates of attendance available. Please note that teachers who wish to obtain credit should seek approval from their school district's Act 48 office prior to the conference.

Conference Schedule

About the Sessions

Friday Morning (FM) Sessions
Session Number	Presenters	Description
FM1	Presenters: Margo Mastropieri and Tom Scruggs	Instructional Strategies for Maximizing Learning Instructional strategies based on research evidence designed to improve learning in school will be described. Teachers must meet the instructional needs of all learners, even when content is challenging, student needs are diverse, and students may lack the motivation to succeed in school. Important considerations include the systematic implementation of instructional variables such as peer mediation, hands-on learning, strategy training, developing and implementing differentiated curriculum enhancements, and implementing all these strategies within exciting and motivating classroom environments. This workshop highlights examples from recent research that can help improve student motivation, reading comprehension, memory, and content area learning, combined with principles of differentiated instruction. At the end of this workshop participants will be able to describe strategies to adapt materials and instruction to: Improve reading comprehension; improve memory; use differentiated instruction in science and social studies; improve motivation. Grade Level: All Knowledge Level: Beginning Materials: Provided
FM2	Presenter: Paul Riccomini	Analyzing Students' Mathematical Errors: Instructional Implications The purpose of this session is to provide a framework and general guidelines to review, identify, and provide corrective instruction for mathematical errors. Effective mathematics teachers must identify specific errors, analyze their sources, and provide specific instruction to correct student errors. This session will provide examples and demonstrations of error analysis procedures for mathematics. Participants will learn about systematic and commonly occurring mathematical errors in students' problem solutions. Instructional recommendations and implications for the use of error analysis procedures for both general and special education teachers are described. Additional strategies for organizing both instruction and students' studying of material to facilitate learning, remembering, and applying critical mathematical concepts and skills in new situations will be presented. Grade Level: All Knowledge Level: Beginning Materials: Provided
FM3	Presenter: Pamela Stecker	Peer-assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) in Reading for Grades 2-6 Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) is a research-validated, classwide peer tutoring method designed to provide supplemental reading practice. Typically conducted several times weekly for about one-half hour, PALS Reading provides opportunities for students to read aloud, retell, summarize, and predict, while receiving immediate feedback from peers. Teachers pair stronger and weaker readers, but all students change roles and have opportunities to serve as both coaches and readers. The PALS version of peer tutoring was developed by Doug and Lynn Fuchs and their colleagues at Peabody/Vanderbilt University and was awarded the US Department of Education's Best Practice status in 2001. PALS enhances reading skills across a broad range of learners, encourages positive peer interactions, and increases engaged time on task. In this session, participants learn to implement PALS and discuss issues related to schoolwide implementation. Grade Level: 2-6 Knowledge Level: Beginning Materials: $35
FM4	Presenters: Joy Eichelberger and Laura Moran, PaTTAN	Response To Intervention: A Standards-Aligned Approach to Improve Student Achievement This session will provide an overview of the core characteristics of Pennsylvania's Response to Intervention framework and connect effective teaching strategies and school improvement efforts to the RtI framework. Data and lessons learned from Pennsylvania's RtI pilot and other school intervention sites will be shared. Grade Level: Elementary Knowledge Level: Beginner/Intermediate Materials: Provided
Friday Afternoon (FA) Sessions
Session Number	Presenters	Description
FA1	Presenters: David Bateman, David T. Painter, and Tanya A. Alvarado	Special Education Law and Legislation Update, with an Emphasis on RTI Even though special education law is complex and open to interpretation, it does affect day-to-day practice. This session describes changes in special education law and legislation, especially as it relates to the 2004 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Topics include evaluation; IEP teams, processes, and content; LRE; procedural safeguards; equitable participation; early intervening; discipline; accountability and highly qualified teachers; resolution meeting prior to due process; funding, administrative timelines, and attorney fees. In addition, there will be special focus on the implementation and legal ramifications of RTI. Grade Level: All Knowledge Level: Intermediate to Advanced Materials: Provided
FA2	Presenters: Deborah Speece, Lisa Pericola Case, Katryna Andrusik, Dawn Jacobs, Elizabeth Montanaro, and Kristen Ritchey	Reading Interventions for Children in Elementary School Our session targets teachers who want to understand more about reading interventions for first through fourth grade children who do not progress with general education classroom instruction. In a Response to Intervention (RTI) framework, our interventions are considered Tier 2: small-group instruction that is not individualized. We will briefly present an overview of our projects and provide preliminary effectiveness data from our first year of experiments. Most of the session will focus on the instructional elements of our interventions. Through demonstration, modeling, and hands-on practice with our materials, participants will learn the word attack, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension techniques we find helpful with struggling readers. Grade Level: 1-4 Knowledge Level: Beginning Materials: Provided
FA3	Presenter: Kimberly Bright	A Real-Life Problem-Solving Strategy for Secondary Students With Learning Disabilities To function independently after high school, students with learning disabilities need to think, reason, and solve problems in all aspects of their lives including work, family, and responsible citizenship. However, the failure of students with learning disabilities to acquire these skills is well documented. The I THINK strategy teaches “real life” problem solving that is easy to integrate into any classroom, is fun, and is geared to a variety of educational settings and specific “real-life” problems. Grade Level: Middle School and Up Knowledge Level: Beginning Materials: Provided
FA4	Presenters: Naomi Zigmond, Amanda Kloo, and Victor Rodriguez-Diaz	PSSA-M: Defining Who Should be Held to Grade Level Modified Academic Achievement Standards Until this year, all students with disabilities were required to participate in statewide accountability assessments by taking the standard state assessment, the standard assessment with allowable accommodations, or an alternate assessment for students with significant cognitive disabilities. In December 2007, USDE introduced a fourth alternative: a modified state assessment with performance judged against modified grade-level achievement standards. Two very challenging questions face special educators and measurement specialists who wish to develop the new assessment: Who should the modified assessment be for and how can grade level academic achievement standards be modified so that they are more accessible to students with persistent academic problems but still measure student performance on grade level tasks? The panel and the audience will grapple with these issues and recommend solutions. Grade Level: All Knowledge Level: Beginning/intermediate Materials: Provided
FA5	Presenter: Joe Dimino	Response to Intervention: Improving Tier 1 Instruction Through Teacher Study Groups In this session, participants learn to implement the four components of Teacher Study Groups (TSGs) that improve Tier 1 instruction in vocabulary and comprehension by enhancing core reading programs to reflect Scientifically Based Reading Research (SBRR) where it may be lacking. The objectives of this session are to discuss and demonstrate: 1) the four components of TSG sessions, 2) strategies for analyzing curriculum based on SBRR, and 3) how to develop lessons that enhance Tier 1 instruction based on the analysis. This information is based on a randomized field trial examining the effects of TSGs on pedagogy, teacher knowledge, and student achievement in three large, urban school districts across two years. Grade Level: Elementary Knowledge Level: Beginning Materials: Provided
Saturday Morning (SM) Sessions
Session Number	Presenters	Description
SM1	Presenters: Jose Luis Alvarado and Diane Rodriguez	English Language Learners Students with learning disabilities (LD) who are identified as English Learners (EL) present a unique challenge to local school districts. Students with LD and who are also EL are moving to areas of the country that may not be prepared with appropriately trained teachers who can effectively address both the language acquisition and the unique learning needs of these students. This session will address the theoretical underpinnings of language acquisition, characteristics of EL students, assessment of language proficiency, and effective strategies for teaching EL students in the content area or general education classroom. Grade Level: All Knowledge Level: Beginning Materials: Provided
SM2	Presenter: Karen Rooney	Writing Workshop—How to Develop Writing Across the Continuum of Skills Writing is a demanding process that requires integration of multiple skills to produce the finished product. Often instruction does not help students make progress because the instruction is not explicit enough in terms of skill development to build independent writing skills. Dr. Rooney will identify the two basic goals of writing and introduce strategies such as Cloze Writing, Question Writing, Model Writing, and Reverse diagramming to achieve those goals. The session will include strategies that address vocabulary development as well as writing sentences, paragraphs, stories, compositions, essays, poems and reports. Computer software programs for some of the strategies presented will be included. Grade Level: All Knowledge Level: Beginning Materials: Provided
SM3	Presenter: Margaret McKeown	Effective Vocabulary Instruction: Why It Matters and How It Works This presentation will focus on principles of vocabulary acquisition and their implications for instruction. Attention to building students' vocabulary is key to their future literacy development. Yet, there is little emphasis on the acquisition of vocabulary in school curricula. Although most learning of vocabulary is from context, context is not an efficient way to learn vocabulary. If left on their own, many students will not learn enough words or learn them deeply enough for adequate comprehension to develop. This presentation will include discussion and activities around the following topics: types of words to teach, choosing words for instruction from texts, effective ways to introduce word meanings, developing ways for students to interact with word meanings, and ways to keep attention to words lively and productive in the classroom. Grade Level: 1-12 Knowledge Level: Intermediate Materials: Provided
SM4	Presenters: Erica Lembke and Todd Busch	Curriculum-Based Measurement at the Secondary Level: Administration of Measures and Data Utilization This presentation will provide an overview of the use of Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) for screening and progress monitoring at the secondary level. Participants will be provided an overview of the research that supports measures in various academic areas and will practice administering and scoring the measures. In addition, information on data utilization will be provided. As a result of this session, participants will: 1) be able to cite the research that supports measures in particular content areas for secondary students, 2) be able to administer and score measures for use at the secondary level, and 3) be able to apply data decision-making rules to graphed data. Grade Level: All Knowledge Level: Intermediate Materials: Provided
SM5	Presenter: Rollanda O'Connor	Successful Tier 2 Interventions in Reading: Grades K-3 When students fail to thrive with good reading instruction in Tier 1, what are the most likely areas of difficulty? What should Tier 2 instruction look like? In this session, we will focus on the most successful strategies for improving students' response to small group Tier 2 intervention. We will examine each potential road block to reading at each grade level and learn how to implement instructional activities that open these roads to improved responsiveness. The instruction modeled and discussed in this session has strong success rates in the studies and schools that have decreased the incidence and severity of learning disabilities in reading in the primary grades. Grade Level: K-3 Knowledge Level: Beginning Materials: Provided
Saturday Afternoon (SA) Sessions
Session Number	Presenters	Description
SA1	Presenter: Judy Engelhard	Collaborative Strategic Reading: Teaching Comprehension Strategies Before, During, and After reading in Content Area Texts This session focuses on how to teacher upper elementary, middle, and high school students to systematically apply four powerful reading comprehension strategies through Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR). CSR includes research-based strategies of predicting, clarifying, getting the main idea, and summarizing that are implemented with collaborative groups in which students improve comprehension as they preview, click & clunk, get the gist, and wrap-up. Participants will practice these strategies in Social Studies and Science Texts. Grade Level: All Knowledge Level: Beginning Materials: Provided
SA2	Presenters: Mike Gerber, Kimberley Weiner, and Amber Moran	Core Intervention Model for Small Group Tier 2 Instruction Small group instruction is an efficient strategy for providing supplemental instruction (Tier 2) to struggling students as part of a broad Response to Instruction plan. This workshop will train participants in a Core Intervention Model (CIM), a framework that increases intensity, controls cognitive load, includes implicit and explicit behavior management, and incorporates direct instruction and systematic correction techniques to obtain maximum responding during short intervention sessions. Participants will learn research-based instructional practices that can be adapted to any curriculum, can reduce or eliminate problematic behaviors during small group instruction, can “fit” into busy classroom days, and can increase opportunities to learn for high risk students. Grade Level: All Knowledge Level: Intermediate Materials: Provided
SA3	Presenters: Charles Hughes and Peggy Weiss	Making the Move to College: What do Students With LD (and Those Who Work With Them) Need to Know? This session will address four specific questions related to the transition from high school to postsecondary education. These are: 1) What are the differences between IDEA, Section 504, and ADA? 2) What are the differences in services between high school and college? 3) What are the differences in documentation requirements? 4) What are the differences in responsibilities for students? In addition to information, we will provide practical strategies to deal with these differences. There will be an opportunity for discussion and problem solving as we deal with each topic. Grade Level: 9-12 Knowledge Level: Beginning Materials: Provided
SA4	Presenters: Cindy Goldsworthy and Joe McFarland, PaTTAN	Making it Happen: The Challenges and the Joys of Designing and Implementing a Response to Intervention Model How do you establish a school-wide culture of beliefs, attitudes, and practices that results in the use of data to inform instruction? How do you organize the school system in the areas of curriculum, instruction, and assessment to facilitate the needed changes to implement a Response to Intervention model? How do you build structures and systems that support an effective multi-tiered intervention model? This session will provide participants with information and opportunities for discussion around a three-tiered intervention model put in place in a suburban PA school district. The focus will be on the critical components needed to influence, design, build, and implement an effective intervention model at both the elementary and secondary levels designed to increase student achievement. Grade Level: All Knowledge Level: Intermediate Materials: Provided

How to Register

There are two ways to register:

1. To print a form for mail-in registration, click here.
2. To register online with a credit card, click here.

Our Presenters

Jose Luis Alvarado is an Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education at San Diego State University. His research interests include effective instruction and behavior support for culturally and linguistically diverse students with disabilities.

Tanya Alvarado has a BA and JD and is currently an associate at McAndrews Law Offices, a law firm that represents parents in special education due process hearings.

Katryna Andrusik is a doctoral student in the Department of Special Education at the University of Maryland. She has worked with students in public and private settings for over eight years. Her interests include learning disabilities, secondary reading comprehension, and working with students of non-dominant cultures in urban school systems.

David Bateman is Professor of Special Education at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. He has been a hearing officer in over 580 due process hearings and is the co-author of The Special Education Due Process Handbook and A Principal's Guide to Special Education.

Kimberly Bright is an Assistant Professor of Teacher Education/Special Education at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. Prior to entering higher education, Kimberly served as a Director of Special Education and a teacher of students with learning disabilities. Kimberly has served as President of Pennsylvania's Association Council for Exceptional Children.

Todd Busch is an Assistant Professor in the Special Populations Department at Minnesota State University, Mankato. His research interests include student progress monitoring and secondary reading. He is currently a trainer for the National Center on Progress Monitoring.

Lisa Pericola Case is a Research Associate at the University of Maryland, College Park. She has worked in the field of special education for over 20 years, first as a classroom teacher of students with learning and physical disabilities, and then as a researcher and university instructor. Her research interests focus on reading instruction and learning strategies for students at risk for learning disabilities.

Joe Dimino is a Research Associate at the Instructional Research Group in Long Beach, CA. His research interests include reading comprehension, early literacy, content area instruction, and translating research into classroom practice.

Joy Eichelberger is Pennsylvania's State Lead for Response to Intervention and supervises professional development services at the Pennsylvania Training and Technical assistance Network (PaTTAN). Joy provides consultant services in the areas of leadership, effective instruction and data-based decision making.

Judy B. Engelhard is the Special Education Program Coordinator and an Associate Professor at Coastal Carolina University. She is also Professor Emerita at Radford University. She has served on national boards for several professional organizations including the Division for Learning Disabilities. Her professional interests are in specific learning disabilities, reading instruction and remediation, teacher quality, and public policy.

Michael Gerber is a Professor and Chair of the Education Department at the University of California Santa Barbara. In recent years, he and his students have focused on early intervention to provide supplementary instruction in basic skills for young students who are English learners and at high risk for learning disabilities. He has been an educator for 38 years, including eight years as a general and special education teacher in an inner-city school.

Cindy Goldsworthy is the Assistant to the Superintendent at Derry Township School District. Dr. Goldsworthy's experience includes working as a teacher in both regular and special education, an education consultant, and a supervisor of special education. Her work experience also includes service as a Supervisor of Staff Development, Assistant Director of Exceptional Children Services of IU 13, and Assistant Director of Curriculum and Instruction Services in Lancaster-Lebanon Intermediate Unit.

Charles Hughes is Professor of Special Education at Penn State and an Adjunct Senior Scientist at the KU-CRL. He is a Past-President of DLD and is currently Editor of Learning Disabilities Research and Practice. He is the principal investigator of a federally-funded project examining effective classroom-level interventions that impact academic performance of students with LD in general education classrooms.

Dawn Jacobs is a doctoral student in the Learning Disabilities program at the University of Maryland. Her research interests include family-school communication.

Amanda Kloo is part-time faculty in the Special Education program at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research and professional interests focus on early literacy practices, effective intervention strategies, and data-driven instruction and assessment practices for students with disabilities and those at-risk for academic failure.

Erica Lembke is Assistant Professor in the Department of Special Education at the University of Missouri. Her research interests include progress monitoring and development of reading and math intervention and she is currently a trainer for the National Center on Progress Monitoring.

Joe McFarland is the Primary School Principal at Hershey Elementary School. He began his teaching career at the Hempfield School District in Lancaster County where he taught elementary students for fourteen years. He served as Head Teacher at Hempfield's Rohrerstown Elementary School during his last six years at the school. McFarland came to the Derry Township School District during the 2001-02 school as Assistant Principal for the Elementary School.

Margaret G. McKeown is a senior Scientist at the Learning, Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh. Her work addresses practical, current problems that classroom teachers and their students face. Her work covers the areas of instructional design and teacher professional development in reading comprehension and vocabulary.

Margo A. Mastropieri is Professor of Special Education at George Mason University in the Graduate School of Education. Her current research interests include strategies to facilitate learning for students with special needs including comprehension strategies, mnemonic strategies, and strategies to facilitate content area learning. She was awarded, with Tom Scruggs, the Council for Exceptional Children's Outstanding Research Award in 2006.

Elizabeth Montanaro is a doctoral student in the Learning Disabilities program at the University of Maryland. She has seven years experience as both a general and special educator in New Jersey. Her research interests include teacher effectiveness, fidelity of implementation, and response to instruction.

Amber Moran is a first year doctoral student in Special Education, Disabilities, and Risk Studies at UCSB. After graduating with a B.S. in biopsychology, Amber taught students with mild to moderate disabilities in a middle school with Teach for America in Louisiana. Her research interests include interventions with students who are academically at risk and student development in math problem solving.

Laura Moran provides expert professional development and consultation services in the areas of response to intervention, data-based decision making, 4Sight Benchmark testing and standards-aligned instruction for PaTTAN. Before this, Laura served as a District and School Specialist for the Success for All Foundation, Baltimore, MD.

Rollanda O'Connor is Professor of Special Education at the University of California at Riverside, and President-Elect of DLD. She has conducted numerous reading intervention studies in special and general education settings. Her longitudinal studies of intervention led to the development of Ladders to Literacy (2005) for kindergarten students at risk for reading problems and Teaching Word Recognition (2007), which describes effective strategies for students with LD in Grades K-4.

David Painter has a PhD in School Psychology and a JD and is an associate at Sweet, Stevens, Katz, and Williams, a law firm that represents Pennsylvania school districts in special education due process hearings.

Paul Riccomini is an Assistant Professor at Clemson University. He taught mathematics to students with learning disabilities in self-contained and general education classrooms at the middle and high school level. Currently, he teaches a variety of undergraduate courses in the area of special education and graduate courses focusing on including students with disabilities in general education classrooms. His research interests include effective math instruction for students with disabilities, instructional technology applications, and dropout prevention strategies.

Kristen D. Ritchey is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at the University of Delaware. Her research interests are in assessments and interventions for children with reading and writing disabilities.

Diane Rodriguez is an Associate Professor at East Carolina University in the College of Education, Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Dr. Rodriguez's research is based primarily in the fields of teaching culturally and linguistically diverse students with and without disabilities, multicultural education, and teacher preparation.

Victor Rodriguez-Diaz is the Assistant Director of the PA Training and Technical Assistant Network (PaTTAN)-Harrisburg office. He has served in multiple statewide and national advisory committees (e.g., assessment accommodations, alternate assessment, IDEA, NCLB implementation).

Karen J. Rooney is director of Educational Enterprises, Inc., in Richmond, Virginia. She provides direct services to children, adolescents and adults with learning disabilities and attention disorders as well as consultation and training to parents, teachers, and mental health professionals

Tom Scruggs is Director of the Ph.D. in Education program and a Professor at George Mason University. His research interests include research synthesis and strategies to facilitate content area learning for students with special needs. He is Co-editor of the research annual, Advances in Learning and Behavioral Disabilities (1992-present).

Deborah Speece is a Professor of Special Education at the University of Maryland. She conducts research on reading disabilities, classification, and response to instruction and currently directs two federally-funded grants on these topics.

Pamela Stecker is a Professor at Clemson University. Her research interests and work with preservice and practicing teachers focus on academic interventions and the use of progress monitoring tools for enhancing instructional planning. While a doctoral student at Vanderbilt University, Pam worked under Lynn and Doug Fuchs and helped to couple progress monitoring procedures with Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) to better address academic diversity. Currently, Pam serves as the Chair of DLD's Professional Development, Standards, and Ethics Committee.

Kimberly Weiner is a 3rd year doctoral student in Special Education, Disabilities, and Risk Studies at UCSB. After several years of teaching children with Autism, Kim turned her focus to special education administration, specifically related to teachers' professional development. Currently, Kim is training and working with undergraduate tutors to deliver listening comprehension instruction to English Language Learners in a small group setting. She also provides instruction in effective behavioral techniques in Core Intervention Model training.

Margaret P. Weiss is a Learning Specialist in Student Athlete Academic Support Services at Virginia Tech. Her research interests include effective instructional strategies and effective transition practices for students with LD going to college.

Naomi Zigmond is a Professor of Special Education in the Department of Instruction and Learning at the University of Pittsburgh. She has published extensively on models of appropriate service delivery for students with disabilities, with particular attention to inclusion. She also directs the PA Alternate System of Assessment.