March 10, 2018:  Don't miss an opportunity to learn from David Kilpatrick as he discusses "Recent Advances in Understanding Word-Level Reading Problems: Assessment and Highly Effective Intervention."  Click here  to register.   

Don't forget to get his books ahead of time.  You can order Essentials of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties and/or  Equipped for Reading Success.  If you order,  through Amazon Smile and have chosen the Oregon Branch of the International Dyslexia Association, they will donate 0.5% of the price on eligible purchases. 

To read "Do You Know Which Indicators Explain Intervention Effectiveness Most Reliably?" by David that was recently published in The eXaminer, click here.

The Oregon Branch of the International Dyslexia Association was pleased to welcome longtime Baltimore based, IDA staff member Christy Blevins to Oregon for the weekend of January 12-14.

Christy has held many roles in her 18 years with IDA and many of us know her from her work in membership and branch support departments. She is currently engaged as Education Training Manager, an important position to the growing IDA efforts related to
teacher certification and teacher training program accreditation.

During her short stay in the Portland area Christy was kept very busy. Friday visits to Park Academy, the Blosser Center, and participation with ORBIDA members in a staff training at Our Lady of the Lake School in Lake Oswego were capped off with a membership meet and greet hosted by Park Academy. During this informal discussion, Christy updated members on new developments coming soon from IDA headquarters to benefit all branches. Chief amongst these were a new, virtual Provider Directory that will add search features and be easier to update. She also described changes to a new edition of the IDA Knowledge and Practice Standard for Teachers of Reading currently under review for publication. Attendees asked questions about IDA accreditation and certification processes and are looking forward to the publication of Accreditation and Certifications Handbook also in the process of completion, for release soon.

Saturday of Christy's visit she was able to spend the entire morning meeting with the ORBIDA board for the annual board retreat. Christy added a great national perspective to the board goal-setting discussion and helped to start our planning in preparation for the International IDA Conference coming to the Portland Convention Center in November 2019. She fanned enthusiasm for this opportunity for our branch and left everyone thinking about possibilities for ORBIDA events, new membership, and a time to learn and network outside our state that a national convention can bring. We certainly look forward to more visits from Christy and other IDA staff as the conference date approaches. 

We would love to spotlight one member each month in our newsletter.  If you are interested in telling us about you, please let us know.  Email us at [email protected]

Starting as a special education teacher, I quickly realized that reading difficulty was one of the biggest problems facing our students.  I transitioned to the primary classroom and started to focus on the importance of preventing reading problems.  

In 1999, attending the national IDA conference in Washington DC was the first time that I was
introduced to the neurological causes of dyslexia based on brain-images. It really opened my eyes and changed my view of dyslexia. Up to that time, I had been closely following the research on beginning and corrective reading, but I saw dyslexia mainly as a teaching problem. From that conference, I began to change my perspective. 

After I retired, I conducted an after-school reading clinic for a couple of years and began work on starting a charter school based on prevention of reading problems.  In all, I was able to start six schools around the Portland area that all used direct instruction teaching approach.  These are known as the Arthur Academy Charter Schools.  

Now that I'm completely retired I've been able to go back to doing more studying of beginning  reading and conducting small seminars on The Science of Reading Words and Dyslexia.  If you are interested learning more about me or my upcoming workshops, visit my website at http://arthurreadingworkshop.com or my facebook page here.

You can also reach me through  email at [email protected].