{"id":44881,"date":"2024-08-23T01:35:13","date_gmt":"2024-08-23T08:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=44881"},"modified":"2024-08-22T18:33:02","modified_gmt":"2024-08-23T01:33:02","slug":"a-new-way-to-teach-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2024\/08\/23\/a-new-way-to-teach-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"A new way to teach reading\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lisa Gelberman (photo courtesy)<\/em><\/p>\n

Over the years, Toronto-based educator Lisa Gelberman saw a consistent problem with the education system: it did not address the fact that a third of students in North America have various reading difficulties.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen kids struggle academically, they struggle behaviourally, they struggle socially, and long-term success becomes more unlikely. It\u2019s a huge spiral,\u201d said Gelberman, principal at Kayla\u2019s Children Centre (KCC).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In her view, the need was so great to help those falling through the literacy cracks, that she took matters into her own hands to find a way to solve the problem. Over time, she developed an online reading program called Literacy Decoded, which launched in 2022. Its aim is to train teachers to support students with learning disabilities, dyslexia and other developmental delays. Several Toronto Jewish schools (including Bais Yaakov High School and Eitz Chaim Schools) have purchased the course and adopted its curricula. She has sold it to hundreds of educators across North America.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Comprising mostly Jewish students, KCC is a school, therapy clinic, recreational centre and camp for children with special needs, and some students, including those who have extreme delays, have learned to read because of the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Jewish community sees the importance of supporting children with learning disabilities and dyslexia,\u201d Gelberman said. \u201cThere are going to be fewer kids leaving the Jewish school systems for secular schools, because now their own schools have the training and resources needed. Now their needs are being met and [the program is] changing their educational outcome,\u201d she contends.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The mother of five began her career as a teacher at a public school, teaching first grade for three years, then, having taken various course qualifications, she began teaching special education. Later, she led a class for students with learning disabilities, dyslexia or severe ADHD. Afterwards, she taught children with autism.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was always very passionate about teaching children to read,\u201d she said. \u201cDeveloping curricula and exploring different paths to teaching kids to read is my purpose.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Up until about five years ago, Gelberman said, most schools across North America used a methodology called the \u201cwhole language approach.\u201d But a full third of children do not pick up reading from this method, she argues. \u201cSo, kids struggle, and I just knew there\u2019s something I had to do about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery year,\u201d she continued, \u201cI got so close to teaching this one child to read [but] he came back after the summer and it was like everything I taught him was lost. I didn\u2019t understand why. That\u2019s when I started to look for other programs to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

She discovered the Orton-Gillingham approach, and, on her own dime and with a year-and-a-half of study, she became certified to teach it.<\/p>\n

After being hired by Kayla\u2019s, Gelberman applied the Orton-Gillingham methods with the institution\u2019s kids and found success in teaching children who previously had found it incredibly difficult to read.<\/p>\n

Building upon the program, she videoed her own son, who showed signs of dyslexia and was having trouble reading, learning with the approach and used it to show teachers and parents how to implement it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s jumped three grade levels in six months. And even his teacher at the time couldn\u2019t believe it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s how I actually was able to improve upon the program\u2026. I was training the teachers, and other schools were asking me to come in [to do] staff training, but I simply didn\u2019t have the time. So, I decided to develop a course of my own.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"image<\/a>
Lisa Gelberman has created an online teaching program, Literacy Decoded, based on the Orton-Gillingham method. (image from Lisa Gelberman)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was important for Gelberman to gear her own program towards Jewish day schools, which she claims have fewer resources, in general, to divert to kids who are lagging. Particularly for the Jewish community, she\u2019s made a special effort to ensure the content \u2013 words and images \u2013 is appropriate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Gelberman, the two years of remote learning during COVID made the program more relevant and needed, given how so many children who require in-person interaction to absorb materials were denied this interaction during a critical time in their learning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just so happy that the children who would have fallen through the cracks are now able to read,\u201d she said, adding that KCC children are being mainstreamed, when they ordinarily would not be.<\/p>\n

Four years in development, \u201chuge pieces\u201d of Gelberman\u2019s program do not involve memorizing words, nor looking at pictures, tools she said have been relied upon heavily as teaching aids. Instead, in her course, what seems to work is the sounding out of words, learning different sound combinations, and learning syllable types.<\/p>\n

The program is asynchronous, that is, it proceeds at the teacher\u2019s pace, and each lesson is through video, so the lessons feel \u201clive.\u201d In addition, Gelberman offers monthly coaching sessions with teachers, where they share with each other their struggles and problem-solving methods.<\/p>\n

\u201cI truly feel the right training from the right teachers can and will teach kids to read,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dave Gordon<\/b> is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than 100 publications around the world. His website is davegordonwrites.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lisa Gelberman (photo courtesy) Over the years, Toronto-based educator Lisa Gelberman saw a consistent problem with the education system: it did not address the fact that a third of students in North America have various reading difficulties.\u00a0 \u201cWhen kids struggle academically, they struggle behaviourally, they struggle socially, and long-term success becomes more unlikely. It\u2019s a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44883,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3076,23465,23466,2663,23463,20337,23464,4994],"class_list":["post-44881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","tag-education","tag-kaylas-children-centre","tag-lisa-gelberman","tag-literacy","tag-literacy-decoded","tag-online-learning","tag-orton-gillingham","tag-toronto"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}