Looking for ideas for professional development or conference workshops?
Brenda offers the following workshop topics:
1. Letters and Sounds - Establishing the Foundation for Reading – (approx. 2 hours)
In this session, participants will be given:
- a brief overview of research and literature on the importance of teaching the alphabetic principle
- a rationale for focussing on letter sounds and lower case letters
- a review of phonemic awareness skills
- suggestions for developing accuracy and automaticity
- assessment materials
- suggestions for follow-up activities once letters and sounds are taught
2. Reducing and Reversing Letter Reversals(approx. 1.25 hours)
Letter reversals are a concern in every classroom. In this session, participants will learn:
- two key strategies to help prevent reversals from happening
- techniques to correct many of the common reversal problems
- specific strategies to correct the b – d confusion
Please note: Sessions 1 and 2 can be combined into a full-morning, 3 hour session.
3. An Overview of Itchy's Alphabet program – (approx. 2.5 hours)
This session is designed to provide those teachers using Itchy's Alphabet or planning to implement the program with a demonstration of the program and its various components, including:
- an introduction to and background information on Itchy's Alphabet
- a demonstration lesson from the Teaching Guide
- ways to use the various support materials
- hands-on activities with alphabet books and favorite children's story books
- development of phonological awareness activities
Here is what attendees are saying about Brenda's workshops:
- "Awesome session!!"
- "Super"
- "Brenda Larson was fantastic!"
- "Excellent presentation! Lots of great ideas and loved the program she uses!"
- "Brenda was a great speaker. She was open to questions and had lots of knowledge to share. Well organized."
- "Got lot out of this workshop!"
- "Very helpful. I appreciated the systematic approach with emphasis on the visual!"
- "Brenda was very thorough."
- "Thanks for the great tips!"
- "I loved her ideas on teaching letters and sounds."
