Reading with TLC recently presented a free full-day seminar hosted by the speech language pathology department for Clark County School District in Las Vegas. Clark County is the fifth largest school district in the nation, with a high population of students learning English as a Second Language.
The company, headquartered in Massachusetts, offers a multi-sensory program on phonics as a supplement to the core reading curriculum in pre-kindergarten through grade 2, and as an intervention program for students of all ages.
The session, held at the Southwest Technical Academy in Las Vegas, was facilitated by one of the Reading with TLC’s National Trainers, Bonnie Lamping, a speech language pathologist from Las Vegas. Participants were instructed in language-based, structured techniques for training phonemic awareness, phonics, and the acquisition of sight words.
The seminar drew an audience of 110 speech language pathologists and educators; speech language pathologists attending the full-day event earned free continuing education credits necessary for re-certification from the American Speech Language Hearing Association (ASHA).
On behalf of the Reading with TLC co-founders, Nancy Telian and Penny Castagnozzi, Lamping presented a plaque to Caroline Ciocca of SuperPawn, part of the Cash America family, for the company’s support and dedication to students in the Clark County School District. SuperPawn has donated in excess of $22,000 to Clark County schools to implement the Lively Letters program in classrooms.
Lamping began implementing the Reading with TLC proprietary program Lively Letters at her school district in 2006, after learning of it at the annual convention for the American Speech Language Association. She subsequently became trained in the program and has presented overview seminars in the Clark County School District. As news began to spread about the gains made by students using Lively Letters – including one first grader from Mexico who entered the program with no English language skills and learned 24 out of 26 letter sounds in two months – an increasing number of speech language pathologists and teachers began to implement the program.
In response to the rising interest in the program throughout the Clark County School District, Reading with TLC principals Nancy Telian and Penny Castagnozzi presented the inaugural free full-day national seminar in Las Vegas in October of 2009.
Presently celebrating the 20th anniversary of its Lively Letters program, Reading with TLC 's programs seek to underscore findings by The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development indicating that prevention and early intervention with appropriate methods in grades K-3 decreases the number of special education referrals and that for 90 to 95% of poor readers, early intervention can increase skills to average levels.
“The response to the Reading with TLC program by speech pathologists, teachers and reading specialists has been outstanding,” said Lamping. “Reading is the key to all subjects and ours is a systematic approach to learning to read."
