Teaching Listening Comprehension

by Blanche Podhajski

istening comprehension is among the least understood and

least researched of language skills. For many years, listening
has been neglected as part of language arts curricula (Pearson
& Fielding, 1982). A review of 30 years of listening comprehension research has indicated that most researchers considered it
a passive skill, one that would develop without assistance
(Osada, 2004). As contributors to this Perspectives issue
have noted, listening comprehension has been regarded as a
Cinderella stepsister educationally, secondary to speaking,
reading, and writing (Nunan, 1997).
Recent educational trends have helped bring listening
comprehension back into focus as an important instructional
objective of its own as well as a strong partner in the development of other language skills. Scientific study of the important
role of listening comprehension in reading comprehension
(Cain & Oakhill, 1999; Catts, Herrera, Nielsen & Bridges,
2015; Cutting, Materek, Cole, Levine & Mahone, 2009) has
helped increase attention to the powerful synergy between
spoken and written language comprehension.
The rapidly increasing number of students in our schools
who are English language learners has also sparked greater
interest in teaching listening comprehension. This populations
instructional needs across speaking, reading, and writing
have showcased active listening as a foundational skill (see
Crdenas-Hagan, this issue; Rubin, 1995).
Finally, Common Core State Standards (CCSS, National
Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of
Chief School Officers, 2010) include Speaking and Listening
Standards as an expectation for the classroom. This display
of prominence alongside reading, writing, and math reinforces
that listening comprehension deserves equal instructional
attention.

Challenges Confronting Listening Comprehension

Instruction
Despite its increase in popularity, listening poses challenges
to teachers eager to provide good instruction. Listening remains
hard to define and diagnose (see Farrall, this issue).
Is it listening to directions or stories? Is it the basis for good
note taking during complex lectures involving expository text
like in biology or Russian history? Is it the framework for social
learning and being able to pick up nuances of pitch, tone, and
volume? Is it a function of our vocabularies or background
knowledge? Such questions highlight the dilemma of how we
can be expected to teach a skill that is so difficult to explain
and identify.
Another problem confronting the provision of good instruction is that students experiencing listening comprehension
differences are heterogeneous. They may be children with
attention problems, memory issues, language disabilities and
cognitive differences as well as those who are English language
learners. It would be hard to say, This is what a listening

www.dyslexiaida.org

comprehension problem looks like when the language

behaviors of students who have difficulties listening are so
variable and interwoven.
Finally, and perhaps most problematic to effective instruction, there is the compartmentalized way in which language
itself is taught (Moats, 1994). Both assessments and interventions for listening comprehension tend to pull apart the
whole of language. And nowhere are territory lines more evident than in the delivery of services to learners with language
needs. A student demonstrating a problem that has an impact
on spoken and written language comprehension may be taught
by a speech language pathologist, special educator and/or
reading specialist as well as a classroom teacher. Each brings
different assessment and intervention tools. And yet, the root
cause of the language problem may be the same and in need of
integrated instruction. Wallach (2011) and her colleagues have
long advocated moving beyond different specialists treating
isolated symptoms or teaching to the test. So how do we
integrate across the whole of language to teach listening
comprehension well?

Students experiencing listening

comprehension differences are
heterogeneous. They may have attention
problems, memory issues, language
disabilities, cognitive differences, or
be English language learners.
Background Knowledge for Teaching Listening
Comprehension
It is important to review what we do know that can help
influence our instruction decisions. Researchers have agreed
that listening comprehension has two distinct parts (Carroll,
1972; Hughes, 1989; Rivers, 1966). The first is linguistic, requiring speech sound processing and memory. The second is
meaning driven. Others have described these two parts of listening as auditory perception and message comprehension.
Message comprehension can be further divided into literal
and reflective processing (Goss, 1982). Literal refers to content
that is concrete and reflective refers to going beyond the
information given. We could also consider meaning comprehensions interactional function (Morley, 2001). Interactional
comprehension occurs during conversation and is at the heart
of social learning.
This articles focus is on the meaning, message, and interactional comprehension elements of listening. Although it is
always important to assure that auditory acuity is intact, our
Continued on page 44

Perspectives on Language and Literacy Summer 2016

43

Teaching Listening Comprehension

continued from page 43

purpose is not to evaluate programs designed to improve

auditory processing skills. The interested reader is referred to
a systematic review of the literature on auditory processing
interventions conducted by Fey and his colleagues (2011).
These reviewers cautioned that teachers need to be aware of
the limitations of the evidence and use care to monitor their
students spoken and written language.

Listening Comprehension Instruction Requirements

Listening comprehension that is meaning-based or message-driven is sensitive to instruction (Goh, 2000). Clearly,
many children can benefit from improving their understanding
of spoken language. These include students who are English
language learners and those with specific reading comprehension disabilities (Nation, 2005; Oakhill, Cain, & Elbro, 2015).
Instruction should be customized, explicit, and integrated
across spoken and written domains.

Listening comprehension instruction

should take into account learner profiles,
the structure of language itself, and the
context within which listening occurs.
Most agree that listening comprehension instruction must
take into account learner profiles, the structure of language
itself, and the context within which listening occurs. When all
three of these contributing factors are considered, we can
answer the questions: Who are we trying to teach?and What
are we trying to teach them where and how?
Learners come to listening situations with different cognitive profiles. They display varying degrees of attention, memory,
and executive functioning, the ability to flexibly plan and
organize as well as control for competing interferents to attention (Denckla, 1994).
For successful listening comprehension in which we gather,
store, remember, and act upon information, we need good
attention, memory and executive functioning. We know that
listening comprehension is particularly vulnerable in children
with attention disorders (Cain & Bignell, 2014). Working
memory is also a problem for children with attention issues
(Alloway, Gathercole, & Elliot, 2010). Interestingly, accompanying listening activities with written text may facilitate
listening comprehension and reduce the load on memory.
Print provides the opportunity to reread even after the spoken
information is gone.
When listening, students pay attention at many different
levels (Douglas, 1972). Listening can mean coming to attention because one believes that whoever is speaking is worth
listening to. It can mean maintaining attention, having the
discipline to keep listening if a speaker drones on and the
listener is thinking about everything else that would be fun to
do. Or it can be selective attention, recognizing what is most

44

Perspectives on Language and Literacy Summer 2016

important to be listening for: the answers to test questions that

will be on a final, or where and when a birthday party is.
It is helpful to know what levels of attention are most problematic for students. Securing attention from the very beginning
is important for children with attention and listening challenges. Simplify directions and alert children before presenting
requests and information. Rather than, Who was your favorite
character in the story and why Cooper? use names first and
break messages into parts: Cooper, who was your favorite
character in the story? Following his response, ask Why?
Remember that just because a child is sitting attentively
does not assure that attention maintains. We need to help
students monitor their own listening. We also need to teach
children what is most important to listen for. This extends
beyond the names of the characters, dates, and places to
discovering the premise, whether or not the child agrees, and
how what he or she heard made him or her feel.
Students with listening comprehension issues may also
have slow processing speed. Processing speed depends on the
number of task components and the specific material being
processed (Hale, 1990). We have strong evidence to show that
many children with learning disabilities exhibit slower processing speed with verbal information (Felton & Wood, 1989;
Torgesen, Kistner, & Morgan, 1987; Wolf, 1991). Listening may
require increased energy because of inadequate background
knowledge, lack of familiarity with a new language being
spoken, and/or knowing how the language works. More often
than not, it is a combination of these variables that needs to be
identified and addressed instructionally. Customizing instruction for different learner profiles is key.

Securing attention is important for

children with attention and listening
challenges. We also need to help students
monitor their own listening and teach
them what is most important to listen for.
Understanding the structure of language is also essential to
teaching listening comprehension. We need to help students
understand the parts of language and how our English language
works. Language includes phonology, the sound system; morphology, meaningful word parts; semantics, word meanings
and relationships; grammar and syntax, the rules governing our
use of spoken and written language; discourse, connected language as in stories or conversation; and, pragmatics, the social
use of language. These concepts were introduced in this publication by Spear-Swerling and will be considered further for
their specific relevance to listening comprehension instruction.
Listening occurs in many different contexts that need to
be considered when planning instruction. Common listening
environments are the classroom, home, and play spaces. We

International Dyslexia Association

listen to television, podcasts, and over the telephone. We interact with teachers, peers, family, and computerized speech. We
can anticipate that we will listen twice as much as we speak,
four times more than we read and five times more than we
write (Morley, 1991).
Listening environments also have their own unique characteristics. Consider the difference between listening in a library
as opposed to a hockey game. Classrooms may have 15 students and lecture halls hundreds. We have known for some
time that it is harder to listen in environments that are noisy
and distracting. Recent studies have shown that noise has a
particularly negative impact on higher order listening comprehension processes. Poor listening conditions draw resources
away from information processing, auditory working memory,
and comprehension (Sullivan, Osman, & Schafer, 2015).

Listening occurs in many different contexts

and environments that need to be
considered when planning instruction.
Instruction in Listening Comprehension: Learners,
Language Structure, and Context
Despite increased attention to the study of listening comprehension, a gap remains between listening comprehension
research and instructional practice. Here are some evidencebased guidelines that can help support listening comprehension instruction, taking the learner, the structure of language
and the context into account:
Assessing the learner
Listening is a fundamental skill that affects oral language,
reading comprehension, and written language. Instruction
should be explicit and integrated across language domains.
Listening comprehension should be customized. Students
bring different learning profiles to listening comprehension
tasks. Knowledge of student learning strengths and needs
will maximize instructional effectiveness. Assure that students
have been comprehensively assessed across cognitive processes, oral language, academic achievement, attention, and
social learning.
Assessing the knowledge base
Listening comprehension is an active skill influenced by the
structure of language. Knowing languages parts and the influence of each on listening comprehension is important. Anyone
who has studied a foreign language knows the challenges
inherent to differences in pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar,
and syntax (rules for word usage and sentence construction).
Students who are English language learners as well as those
with language disabilities may become confused by how the
English language works.

Instructional Strategies, Resources, and Examples

While the structure of language is a vast area of study,
examples of some impacts on listening comprehension and
instructional strategies follow.

www.dyslexiaida.org

Improving sound awareness and speech

Phonology influences sounds spoken in words. We know
the impact phonemic awareness has on reading. Researchbased explicit reading instruction is built on a foundation of
sound identification and sequencing. Some children also experience problems with sound production. Such difficulties with
speech articulation make some children more difficult to
understand than their peers. Lack of speech intelligibility takes
a toll on listening comprehension and social interaction. When
listeners do not interact with speakers because sound production is impaired, speakers may reduce their talk. Conversation
development suffers and social isolation may result.
The Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing Program for
Reading Spelling and Speech (Lindamood & Lindamood, 1975; 2011) is a good example of an integrated,
explicit intervention to address sound awareness and
production across spoken and written language.
Understanding the function of parts of words
Morphology, the study of meaningful word parts, affects
our listening. Not knowing whether an action is happening
now or has already happened, e.g., she talks, she talked, may
be the result of not recognizing the tense markers s and ed.
Such confusions may be subtle but confounding. Studies have
shown that children with comprehension difficulties have
problems with the marking of tense and subject-verb agreement (Adlof & Catts, 2015). These children would benefit
from activities designed to highlight tense markers.
Building vocabulary
Semantics impacts word knowledge and relationships. It is
important to include vocabulary instruction across multiple
levels. In addition to concrete vocabulary, it is important to
teach function words (Biemiller, 2009) such as if, because,
from, so. It can be these little words that make the difference
to listening comprehension.
In Bringing Words to Life, Beck and her colleagues (2013)
recommend a tiered approach to vocabulary instruction.
Tier 1 includes words that are basic and often found in
basal readers: look, car, girl, blue. Tier 2 comprises words
that mature speakers use: harmony; suspicious, catapulted, multitude; and, Tier 3 addresses words based in content areas like science or math: stratosphere, viscous,
coagulate, geometric.
Text Talk is the strategy these authors designed to explicate the teaching of Tier 2 words. Having young children
listen to words the teacher identifies as Tier 2 words
within stories read out loud helps build vocabulary. This
technique can be extended through the reading of
expository passages to older students. Students listen
and identify both Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary words.
Language comprehension
Grammar and syntax are rules that govern our language.
We know that students have more difficulty with sentence comprehension when there are more words between the subject
Continued on page 46

Perspectives on Language and Literacy Summer 2016

45

Teaching Listening Comprehension

continued from page 45

and verb (Fry, Weber, & DePierro, 1978). Consider the difference between The boy bought candy and The boy who we
thought hated sweets was actually the classmate who bought
the five-pound box of candy to share with everyone at school.
Children may also have difficulty with relative pronouns, e.g.,
who, whom, whose and relative adverbs when, where, why.
Like listening comprehension, grammar and syntax have
regained deserved educational attention. It is also appropriately
being recommended for instruction beginning in preschool
(Arndt & Schuele, 2013).
One of the first programs to address language comprehension in an integrated way across word and sentence
levels for listening and reading comprehension as well
as writing and higher order thinking is Visualizing and
Verbalizing (V/V) by Nanci Bell (1986, 2007). V/V uses
visual imagery to teach language comprehension explicitly and sequentially.

It is important to include vocabulary

instruction across multiple levels.
In addition to concrete vocabulary,
teach function words such as
if, because, from, so.
Developing discourse
Discourse is the connected language of stories and conversation. Comprehending discourse requires concentration, focus,
and coordination of multiple levels of the structure of language:
sounds, words, grammar, and syntax (Graesser, Millis, & Zwaan,
1997). It also taps knowledge of story structure, e.g., narrative
features of characters, settings, and key events.
Reading stories expressively has been shown to increase
story comprehension among preschoolers. Prosody, sometimes
called the music or melody of language, includes pitch, stress
and pausing. Prosody influences comprehension at the discourse level by calling attention to important features of text. It
also helps memory (Mira & Schwanenflugel, 2013). Most of us
tell the story of The Three Bears with an emphasis on the chair
that was juuust right. Retellings are commonly used to assess
childrens understanding of stories.
Supporting Knowledge in Language and Literacy (SKILL)
is a discourse processing program (Gillam, Gillam, &
Reece, 2012) that extends beyond retellings. It provides
explicit instruction of story elements and causal connections, elaboration and independent storytelling. It
addresses comprehension monitoring, helping students
hold what they hear in memory and integrate it with
what they already know.
Conversation has been described as the primary setting
for spoken language comprehension, as well as production

46

Perspectives on Language and Literacy Summer 2016

(Clark, 1996). Conversation, while something we do every day,

requires a complex array of skills, including understanding
turn taking and, with multiple speakers, following who said
what when. As when listening to narratives, understanding the
meaning of what is said and matching it to ones own
background knowledge is a complex process of integration
(Avivi-Reich, Jakubczyk, Daneman, & Schneider, 2015).
To address the Common Cores expectation for participation in collaborative conversations, teachers can provide
scaffolding for asking questions, clarifying information, and
following conversational conventions or rules.
Two examples of excellent strategies we can teach to
improve listening comprehension are paraphrasing and
summarizing. Paraphrasing helps clarify and promote
understanding. Preface responses in collaborative conversations with this is what I think I heard you say
Summarizing and grabbing the gist expand paraphrasing during discourse to make sure that listeners grasp
the main ideas.
Understanding audience
Pragmatics, or language in use, is a logical follow-up to
discourse, particularly as it involves conversation. To have a
good conversation, students need to have an awareness of
audience. By 4 years of age, most children can adjust their
discourse by speaking differently to adults than peers. However,
many children do not know how to adjust language to take
the listener into account. They need to be taught explicitly how
to understand the listeners perspective.
Advances in social learning interventions offer some
excellent strategies such as those included in Social
Thinking developed by Michelle Garcia Winner (2007).

Awareness of the context within which

listening occurs will promote instructional
success. Social listening is different from
academic listening, and academic
listening in the classroom is different from
in the school learning center.
Placing listening in its context
Finally, awareness of the context within which listening
occurs will promote instructional success. Social listening is
different from academic listening. And academic listening in
the classroom is different from in the school learning center.
The nature and genre of curriculum also change. Consider the
different demands of narrative and expository text as well as of
specific content areas across grades (Wallach, 2011).

International Dyslexia Association

Most interventions for listening across contexts utilize a

learning-strategies approach. Learning strategies are intentional
actions we take to facilitate learning (Weinstein & Mayer,
1986). They are often divided into cognitive, metacognitive,
and social/affective strategies (Chamot, 1995; OMalley &
Chamot, 1990).
Examples of cognitive strategies include taking notes,
grouping or classifying information learned, making
inferences, and using prior knowledge. Metacognitive
strategies often involve planning before tasks, monitoring during tasks, and evaluating afterwards. Social/
affective strategies involve questioning for clarification,
peer collaboration, and positive self-talk to reduce
anxiety. Good language learners use many strategies
(Chamot, 1987).

Denckla, M. B. (1994). Measurement of executive function. In G. R. Lyon (Ed.), Frames

of reference for the assessment of learning disabilities: New views on measurement
issues (pp. 117142). Baltimore, MD: Brookes Publishing.

Listenings Broader Benefits

Goh, C. C. (2000). A cognitive perspective on language learners listening comprehension problems. System, 28(1), 5575.

Teaching listening comprehension is an important part of

language learning. Despite its delayed entry to the educational
landscape, listening comprehension can be taught in a customized, explicit, and integrated fashion when learner profiles and
the structure of language are understood and addressed.
Improving listening comprehension will facilitate success not
only in language understanding but in speaking, reading comprehension, and writing as well.

References

Adlof, S. M., & Catts, H. W. (2015). Morphosyntax in poor comprehenders. Reading

and Writing, 28(7), 10511070.
Alloway, T. P., Gathercole, S. E., & Elliott, J. (2010). Examining the link between working memory behaviour and academic attainment in children with ADHD.
Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, 52(7), 632636.
Arndt, K. B., & Schuele, C. M. (2013). Multiclausal utterances arent just for big kids.
Topics in Language Disorders, 33(2), 125139.
Avivi-Reich, M., Jakubczyk, A., Daneman, M., & Schneider, B. A. (2015). How age,
linguistic status, and the nature of the auditory scene alter the manner in which
listening comprehension is achieved in multitalker conversations. Journal of
Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 58(5), 15701591.
Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., & Kucan, L. (2013). Bringing words to life: Robust
vocabulary instruction. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Bell, N. (1986, 2007). Visualizing and verbalizing for language comprehension and
thinking. Paso Robles, CA: Academy of Reading Publications.
Biemiller, A. (2009). Words worth teaching: Closing the vocabulary gap. Columbus,
OH: SRA/McGraw-Hill.
Cain, K., & Bignell, S. (2014). Reading and listening comprehension and their relation
to inattention and hyperactivity. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 84(1),
108124.
Cain, K., & Oakhill, J. V. (1999). Inference making ability and its relation to comprehension failure in young children. Reading and Writing, 11(5), 489503.
Carroll, J. B. (1972). Defining language comprehension: Some speculations. In R. O.
Freedle & J. B. Carroll (Eds.), Language comprehension and the acquisition of
knowledge (pp.129).Washington, DC: V. H. Winston and Sons.
Catts, H. W., Herrera, S., Nielsen, D. C., & Bridges, M. S. (2015). Early prediction of
reading comprehension within the simple view framework. Reading and Writing,
28(9), 14071425.

Douglas, V. I. (1972). Stop, look and listen: The problem of sustained attention
and impulse control in hyperactive and normal children. Canadian Journal of
Behavioural Science, 4(4), 259282.
Felton, R. H., & Wood, F. B. (1989). Cognitive deficits in reading disability and attention deficit disorder. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 22(1), 313.
Fey, M. E., Richard, G. J., Geffner, D., Kamhi, A. G., Medwetsky, L., Paul, D., RossSwain, D., Wallach, G. P., Frymark, T., & Schooling, T. (2011). Auditory processing
disorder and auditory/language interventions: An evidence-based systematic
review. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 42, 246264.
Fry, E., Weber, J., & DePierro, J. (1978). A partial validation of the kernel distance
theory for readability. In P. D. Pearson & J. Hansen (Eds.), Reading: Disciplined
inquiry in process and practice (pp.121124). Clemson, SC: National Reading
Conference.
Gillam, S. L., Gillam, R. B., & Reece, K. (2012). Language outcomes of contextualized
and decontextualized language intervention: Results of an early efficacy study.
Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 43(3), 276291.

Goss, B. (1982). Listening as information processing. Communication Quarterly, 30(4),

304307.
Graesser, A. C., Millis, K. K., & Zwaan, R. A. (1997). Discourse comprehension.
Annual Review of Psychology, 48(1), 163189.
Hale, S. (1990). A global developmental trend in cognitive processing speed. Child
Development, 61, 653663.
Hughes, A. (1989). Testing for language teachers. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Lindamood, P., & Lindamood, P. (1975; 2011). The Lindamood phoneme sequencing
program for reading, spelling, and speech: LiPS: Teachers manual for the classroom
and clinic. Austin, TX: PRO-ED.
Mira, W. A., & Schwanenflugel, P. J. (2013). The impact of reading expressiveness on
the listening comprehension of storybooks by prekindergarten children. Language,
Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 44(2), 183194.
Moats, L. C. (1994). Honing the concepts of listening and speaking: A prerequisite to
the valid measurement of language behavior in children. In G. R. Lyon (Ed.),
Frames of reference for the assessment of learning disabilities: New views on measurement issues (pp. 229241). Baltimore, MD: Brookes Publishing.
Morley, J. (1991). The pronunciation component in teaching English to speakers of
other languages. TESOL Quarterly, 25(3), 481520.
Morley, J. (2001). Aural comprehension instruction: Principles and practices. In M.
Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (3rd ed.) (pp.
6985). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle.
Nation, K. (2005). Childrens reading comprehension difficulties. In M. J. Snowling &
C. Hulme (Eds.), The science of reading: A handbook (pp. 248265). Malden, MA:
Blackwell Publishing.
National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State
School Officers. (2010). Common Core State Standards. Washington, DC: Authors.
Nunan, D. (1997). Strategy training in the language classroom: An empirical investigation. RELC Journal, 28(2), 5681.
Oakhill, J., Cain, K., & Elbro, C. (2014). Understanding and teaching reading comprehension: A handbook. New York, NY: Routledge.
OMalley, J. M., & Chamot, A. U. (1990). Learning strategies in second language
acquisition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Osada, N. (2004). Listening comprehension research: A brief review of the past thirty
years. Dialogue, 3, 5366.
Pearson, P. D., & Fielding, L. (1982). Research update: Listening comprehension.
Language Arts, 59(6), 617629.

Chamot, A. U. (1987). A study of learning strategies in foreign language instruction.

First year report. Rosslyn, VA: Interstate Research Associates.

Rivers, W. M. (1966). Listening comprehension. The Modern Language Journal, 50(4),

196204.

Chamot, A. U. (1995). Learning strategies and listening comprehension. In D. A.

Mendelsohn & J. Rubin (Eds.), A guide for the teaching of second language listening
(pp. 1330). San Diego, CA: Dominie Press.

Rubin, J. (1995). The contribution of video to the development of competence in listening. In D. A. Mendelsohn & J. Rubin (Eds.), A guide for the teaching of second
language listening (pp. 151165). San Diego, CA: Dominie Press.

Clark, H. H. (1996). Using language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Sullivan, J. R., Osman, H., & Schafer, E. C. (2015). The effect of noise on the relationship between auditory working memory and comprehension in school-age children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 58(3), 10431051.

Cutting, L. E., Materek, A., Cole, C. A., Levine, T. M., & Mahone, E. M. (2009). Effects
of fluency, oral language, and executive function on reading comprehension performance. Annals of Dyslexia, 59(1), 3454.

www.dyslexiaida.org

Continued on page 48

Perspectives on Language and Literacy Summer 2016

47

Teaching Listening Comprehension

continued from page 47

Torgesen, J. K., Kistner, J. A., & Morgan, S. (1987). Component processes in working
memory. In J. G. Borkowski & J. D. Day (Eds.), Cognition in special children: Comparative approaches to retardation, learning disabilities, and giftedness (pp. 4985).
Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Wallach, G. P. (2011). Peeling the onion of auditory processing disorder: A language/
curricular-based perspective. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools,
42(3), 273285.
Weinstein, C. E., & Mayer, R. E. (1986). The teaching of learning strategies. In M.
Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (pp. 315327). New York. NY:
MacMillan.
Winner, M. G. (2007). Thinking about you, thinking about me. San Jose, CA: Think
Social Publishing.
Wolf, M. (1991). Naming speed and reading: The contribution of the cognitive neurosciences. Reading Research Quarterly, 26, 123141.

Blanche Podhajski, Ph.D., received her Ph.D. in Communication Disorders from Northwestern University in 1980.
Dr. Podhajski is President and Founder of the Stern Center
for Language and Learning in Williston, Vermont, as well as
Clinical Associate Professor of Neurological Sciences at
the University of Vermont College of Medicine. She is the
co-author of MindPlay Teacher Companion (2014) and
MindPlay Comprehensive Course for Teachers (in press);
BUILDING BLOCKS FOR LITERACY (2011); and the
Sounds Abound Program: Teaching Phonological Awareness in the Classroom (1998).

Become a Member of IDA!

Anyone interested in IDA and its mission can become a member individuals with dyslexia and
their families, educators, school administrators, researchers, physicians, psychologists, and policy
makers, to name just a few examples. To become a member, please contact the IDA Home Office
at member@dyslexiaida.org or call (410) 296-0232.
Advertisement

Delaware Valley Friends School

Is pleased to announce the addition of

5th grade

TO OUR MIDDLE
SCHOOL PROGRAM

DVFSs faculty understands that school is not just about passing

tests and memorizing facts. They teach the children to trust themselves,
to problem-solve and to take risks in the classroom. DVFS PARENT
ASK US ABOUT
OUR TRAILBLAZER
GRANTS FOR OUR
INAUGURAL FIFTH
GRADE CLASS

This is the real impact a Delaware Valley Friends School

education makes every day on students who learn differently.
The Middle School Program (grades 5-8) at Delaware Valley Friends combines the highest standards in adolescent
education with the best practices in teaching students with learning differences. Middle school emphasizes
skills-based learning, executive functioning and study skills. Students learn strategies and skills across the
curriculum, which they can apply to more rigorous content in high school.

Inquire now for enrollment in the 2016-17 school year

Mary Ellen Trent, Director of Admissions | maryellen.trent@dvfs.org

48

Perspectives on Language and Literacy Summer 2016

dvfs.org/5thgrade
610.640.4150

19 E. Central Ave., Paoli, PA

International Dyslexia Association

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without
permission.