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What stood out to me was the sheer number of "requirements" that someone needs to be able to read, and the fact that something could go wrong along the way at a number of different spots.

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What stood out to me was the sheer number of "requirements" that someone needs to be able to read, and the fact that something could go wrong along the way at a number of different spots.

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It really clicked for me in the video when they said "reading never just happens" - I do not think I ever fully understood the intricacies of the reading process.

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I really enjoyed learning about some low tech handwriting tools, I do not utilize these enough!

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I knew that reading was not innate even though learning to speak is; however, I was struck by how complicated the process was. There are so many neural connections that need to be made and that overlap in the brain in order for reading to occur that it is not surprising that students can struggle. There are a lot of areas that could experience challenges or blocks that I find it amazing that reading is able to be done well by so many.

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I was struck by how intricate and complex the process is to get to the point where you can start to read. When I watched the videos on how the eyes and ears work, I was amazed that that all of those processes can work together to enable us to see and hear. It's a wonder that any of us can read!

Another key takeaway for me was how much the process must be broken down in our classrooms to teach reading. As someone who has only taught at the jr. high/high school level, I was reminded that none of my own learning including how to teach children to read. Watching the teachers create those initial letter sounds, followed by blending, followed by whole word reading was a surprise. It must be so challenging finding time to sit with each student, while also managing a room of learners.

How easy and quickly we can find ourselves challenged by reading. It gave me a lot more empathy for those students who struggle with reading; I know understand more about what their brain is trying to do, and can appreciate why it is a challenge.

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Reading is a combination of so many behaviours, and uses all different parts of the brain that have been evolved for other functions, before reading began to be used more widely only a few centuries ago. While I realized how difficult it was to teach reading to students, it's incredible how complex the entire idea is, and how challenging it is for our students who face obstacles in unlocking this hidden language.

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I enjoyed the video of the presentation given on pencil grasp, finger strength and the connection to the core muscles in a child's tummy. Creating stability in their tummies and backs will improve pencil grasp, cutting and gluing skills, etc.

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Humans are incredible! Nature is incredible. From neurons, synapses, the retina, the cochlea, to the outer world that the human interacts with, it really seems miraculous that we exist at all. We're so complex. Now I feel like like deep diving into the brain more. Reading came easy to me as a child, so I never thought about all the things we must learn and do. As a Learning Support Teacher, I see how there are many, many puzzle pieces that might be missing for a variety of reasons. We have to ferret out the cause(s) and plan how to help the student. It becomes easier to identify where things are going wrong over time, and currently, my school (like so many others) is trying to fix a problem we have exacerbated for years: phonological awareness, phonics, and orthographical skills. With to the 6 Pillars of Reading, hopefully education remembers to keep a balanced approach. While we don't want readers who lack reading comprehension, we still need to make sure that decoding skills are strong.

-Melissa

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Since writing includes fine motor, gross motor (as presented by the OT video), and visual spatial skills, PLUS the entire battery of reading skills for the purpose of encoding, PLUS the linguistic skills required for the structure and craft of writing, it makes sense that we see more adaptations provided to students for writing than any other. There are so many possible challenges that can be present. I think of a LiPS group I have, in which students are learning multi-syllable en/decoding and an array of expectancies. They are learning detailed rules, and at the same time seeing examples of rule-breaking sight words. For students who are disinterested, overwhelmed, or frustrated with writing, it must seem truly unpleasant. Luckily, we can support them so that it becomes more manageable and, with the right writing tasks, hopefully enjoyable.

-Melissa

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Writing has been a huge hurdle in my grade 4 class this year. We have had many conversations this year about how low this cohort is in writing. This presentation really shows what an incredibly complex process writing is. No wonder my students find it agonizing.

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What stands out to me are a few things. First, the complexities of reading, and making meaning from reading. I have been reading so much research about whole language learning vs science of reading and phonemic awareness. I think that it makes sense that students need both of these skills when reading, and both need to be explicitly taught.

Second, that not all students have equal opportunity when it comes to their access to ability to learn to read. This is something that we need to remember as educators. When someone doesn't get it one way, it doesn't mean that they can't learn to read. We are all have different complex ways of thinking and obtaining new information.

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I can't imagine not having access to these writing tools that help our learners. I find myself wondering how teachers could support these struggling writers in the past, before we had access to so many assistive writing tools. Now, that we do have access to them, there isn't really an excuse to not be teaching students who could benefit from them, to use them.

I am reflecting back to last class, and thinking that when completing writing activities we need to ask ourself as educators, what are we assessing? If it isn't spelling, or ability to formulate letters on paper/on a document, then we should be providing means for students who can't express content in those ways.

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There is so much more that goes into reading than we realize. As we get older, reading becomes more natural to us, and we almost forget that it was once a skill that we too, had to learn. The awareness activities put reading into perspective for me. In completing the task analysis, I picked up on skills such as how I re-read and scan text for contextual cues; both of which being skills I learned explicitly. In the Braille reflection, I realized I could not make anything out of the text because I was not familiar. This puts things into perspective in thinking about how students or new readers may feel when asked to perform a literary task. There are so many systems in our brains working together that allow us to read efficiently that it is truly a skill we take for granted.

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I liked how the reading process was broken down into multiple small aspects such as connecting symbol to sound, blending and segmenting. I was surprised by how many different parts of the brain are used in the reading process, that as many adults can do automatically.

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For someone who has been reading since a young age, reading is something I feel my brain just 'does'. It's harder to catalogue the process. Does anyone really remember learning to read when they learned from such a young age? I just remember reading, I don't remember learning it. It feels like an innate skill. Seeing it broken down step by step was interesting and eye-opening. I didn't know so much went into reading.

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It was really surprising to me how much of the entire body goes into writing, not just the hand!

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Reading is so important for a myriad of reasons. We read for interest, information and entertainment. I have always known that reading is a complex process, but the readings and videos for this class highlighted how little I really knew. There are so many steps in the process before we formulate meaning. The complexity of the steps the brain must take is truly astonishing. Language combines sounds, meanings and structure to be analyzed and formulated into useful information. I'm amazed at how the process works, starting with patterns of light reflecting off objects, focused at the back of the eye and then transmitted to the brain. The neurons transmit it and the brain interprets it as information. And to think that this all happens in a split second!

The four part reading and processing diagram was also very interesting. The phonological and orthographic info is put in context to construct meaning. The reading process is remarkable. Overlapping processes and many different areas of the brain work together so quickly and so well!

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So much information here! This was the first time that I have seen the writing process broken down into it's individual components. The magnitude of the information was a little overwhelming. Seeing content and mechanical skill broken down into upper and lower level was very informative. As I go forward with my students, I will be more analytical as to why a particular student is struggling with an aspect of writing. The tools, such as R&W4G, are going to be so helpful as I move forward!

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I had never really considered applying what I leaned in highschool biology in regards to eye sight, hearing, and how brain neurons fire to consider how children learn read, and in fact how vast the reading process truly is.

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I found it very interesting that we can train and wire our brains to learn to read by connecting the visual system and the spoken language system. Previously, I hadn't given much consideration to the neurological processes involved in learning to read; instead, my focus was primarily on the delivery of reading instruction instead. There was an abundance of useful information in the slideshows and videos to help me reframe my thinking and teaching when it comes to reading. In particular, it was highly beneficial to learn about the skills that must be learned first (i.e., phonics) so that children can develop automaticity with letter-sound recall before moving on to other areas of reading such as fluency and comprehension.

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I couldn't believe how many low-tech handwriting aids there are. I am definitely going to research these more (particular the writing bird!!) and possibly get some for my classroom. It is awesome how simple & cost-effective they are; by using these the initial mechanical barrier to writing can be removed for students.

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I had seen students with OT notes in their files before but never really understood what they were for and how many levels there really is to the writing process! I knew the importance of proper pencil grip and hand strength but had no idea that abdominal muscles and posture can also effect how a student writes.

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I never thought about the reading process being so complex like this before. It is interesting that inorder for us to read, our bodies( ears and eyes) and our brains need to process so much. In the beginning slides my steps to reading the passage were quite basic; begin decoding words starting at the top and read left to right, think about the meaning of the words to process the information we read. It's incredible to think that there are four processes ( phonological, orthographic, meaning, and context processors) that are active in the reading brain.

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Reading is a very complex process. I didn't realize the extent of the process or how many systems are involved to make reading happen. The quote, " reading never just happens", really stuck with me.

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I found the video on Sharpening Up Pencil Skills very interesting. I didn't realize that strengthening the core could help strengthen pencil grip.

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I've never actually stopped and asked myself, how am I reading? What do I do first? What are the steps that I'm taking?

It's amazing how our ears, eyes and our brains work so hard together to help us read.

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I didn't realise there were so many hand writing tools out there! I have used some of the pencil grips for kindergarten students to help them learn to hold a pencil.

It was an interesting video talking about how core stability, in their stomach and back, will help improve their pencil grip. It's not something I have ever thought about.

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I was amazed by the magnitude/requirements of the reading process. The fact that most of us just learn to speak naturally for the most part, similar to how one would learn to walk while comparing that to the intricacies that go into reading is truly remarkable. It's also astounding to think that a tiny malfunction within our brain could take this gift away. Thinking back to my childhood I can always remember reading, it was just something I could do and admittedly I took that for granted. Now that I am tasked with the responsibility of teaching this gift to students of my own, it is truly remarkable to think about all it's complexities. It truly is a process, in every sense of the matter.

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My biggest takeaway from learning about the reading process is the number of skills a reader requires to complete the task. Not only do they require these skills but they must do them subconsciously more or less. each letter creates meaning to the reader. And just like a symbol in Chinese creates meaningful language so too does each word/letter/sound.

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The complex process of writing uses a multitude of skills from the writer. Not only are they relying on fine motor skills but also turning thought into product. Writing takes organization skills, grammar, critical thinking, creativity and language skills.

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Again, similar to the reading process I'm amazed with the magnitude of events or the overall process that goes into writing. In fact, this is something that I have somewhat taken for granted my whole life. This section really got me thinking about my own class, and if I'm in fact doing enough to assist my students with writing. Should I utilize more technology, to assist students? It also got me thinking about assessment, and the ability to do so with such tools used in the classroom.

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The task analysis PDF is way more complex and detailed than how I described my own reading analysis, which just shows how complex reading really is and I realized I have not given it this much thought before. I don’t remember what it was like to learn how to read but learning how complex it really is now will impact how I continue to teach reading and how it will affect my expectations for students learning to read.

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The complexity of the reading process is overwhelming. A question I'd like to explore more is about dyslexia - does dyslexia exist in all languages? I was very intrigued by the method used to help students with dyslexia read. It is fascinating how it is possible to retrain the brain to become more conscious about the different processes involved in perceiving graphemes to experiencing phonemes beyond just the letter-sound connection but to also be aware of what the mouth does when forming the sounds. I wonder if there are other processes that can be taught to retrain the brain in other ways, to activate other centers when there is a processing deficiency in a certain area.

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Building in UDL with AT in writing tasks

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Building in UDL with AT in writing tasks

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This presentation lead me to think about planning writing lessons from a UDL perspective, being intentional with the AT that would best match the steps required in the writing process for students. I teach grades 7-9 so from my perspective I wonder if it would be best to train the students to use the tools themselves so that they could independently choose to use them as they recognize they need them or to integrate the use of the tools into the lessons themselves.

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After exploring these activities, I learned how important the proper pencil grip truly is. I had no idea that poor pencil grip could lead to all of the writing issues! I also was surprised that posture had such an effect on writing. I understood that pencil grip was an issue in the early grades, but I always thought it was more of an issue of neat writing, I had no idea the true underlying importance!

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This presentation was a great reminder of the complex process of learning to read. As I work with my students and build their reading skills, I can attest that explicit instruction is necessary for students to gain that strong phonemic awareness before moving on to blending and reading small words.

As a teacher, I often try and recall the steps I learned to become a reader. At a very young age I remember enjoying being read to but I not enjoy reading independently reading until I was older. And one day, I finally began to enjoy learning. I am still reflecting on the process for myself.