The International Dyslexia Association
of Pennsylvania and Delaware 

with the support of 

AIM Institute for Learning and Research 

Presents an evening with  

Nancy Cushen White, Ed.D.

Thursday, May 30 at 6 PM
 AIM Institute, 1200 River Road Conshohocken, PA 19428

Open to all interested learners. 

Words with Spelling Connections Have Meaning Connections
 Phonology + Phonics + Morphology + Etymology = Orthography

Awareness of morphology helps students organize their mental dictionaries so that related words are associated and more readily retrieved—for speaking, reading, and writing. Discover how pattern recognition reduces the load on memory and facilitates retrieval of linguistic information. 

Good readers attend to parts of words, both spoken and written. English orthography often reveals the meaningful parts of words, preserving them in spelling even when pronunciation of the morphemes may vary. Beginning readers create orthographic codes from the relationship between letters and phonology. Morphology and etymology play a greater role in longer, more complex words encountered in middle school and high school.

"Our research is telling us good spellers are taught, not born, as is often assumed. Unfortunately, what happens in most schools is dyslexic children learn how to read and then get dismissed from special education classes even though they still need specialized instruction until they learn to spell [Berninger].” Spelling is not systematically and explicitly taught in many classrooms in the United States [Berninger, Moats]. Too often, spelling is taught as a visual rote memory activity that resists “reasoned sequenced instruction” [Moats]. 

In addition to lecture, this presentation will include work samples, demonstration/modeling of strategies, and attendee participation in use of strategies for teaching morphemes and the layers of English etymology. 

Nancy Cushen White, Ed.D. is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Pediatrics-Adolescent & Young Adult Medicine-University of CA-San Francisco and a member of the UCSF Dyslexia Research Team. She has 40+ years of experience in public schools as classroom teacher, special education teacher, and program specialist. She is a certified academic language therapist, a board-certified educational therapist, a certified Slingerland teacher training course director, and a dyslexia consultant in her private practice, Dyslexia Evaluation & Remediation Clinic. As a past member of The International Dyslexia Association Board of Directors, she represents IDA on the National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities (NJCLD). Currently, she is the editor of the Examiner, IDA’s monthly on-line newsletter.

SUGGESTED DONATION OF $25 COLLECTED AT THE DOOR
DONATIONS SUPPORT SCHOLARSHIPS TO FUTURE EVENTS

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