6th Annual i.t.a. Foundation Conference
Over 80 attendees at the 6th Annual i.t.a. Conference made this the largest conference hosted by the Foundation to promote the use of the initial teaching alphabet for correction of reading failure. Alverna Hall, on the campus of the former Saint Teresa’s College in Winona, was filled to capacity with educators engaged and working hard to develop Spelling by Pattern lessons.
The lessons developed by conference attendees will be available soon. In the meantime, the attached document will serve as a teaching guide. However, buyer beware! Some of these lessons contain “Ya Buts…”Spelling by Pattern lessons-2015. Use the workshop powerpoint, with expandable comment bubbles, as a teaching guide for your Spelling by Pattern program. Spelling by Pattern PPT
During the opening session, Board members Drs. Susan Moore and Jane Anderson reviewed their research on the use of i.t.a. for correction of phonological deficits in elementary and community college students. In July, they presented at the 17th Annual EDULearn International Conference in Barcelona, Spain: PA Deficits in College-PPT and PA Deficits in Elementary Students-PPT.
Both presentations demonstrated how the i.t.a. strategy Slash and Dash not only improved spelling and vocabulary but also resulted in remediation of underlying phonological deficits. Reading specialists whose administrators ask for documentation of the research on i.t.a. with struggling readers will want to download these publications from the EDULearn Conference Proceedings: Correcting PA Deficits in College Students and Correcting PA Deficits in Elementary Students. Additional research on the effectiveness of i.t.a. for reading interventions can be downloaded on the i.t.a. Foundation website.
