Can You Break Apart the Wilson Reading Program?
Come across Barbara Wilson, Author & Co-Founder of the Wilson Reading System®
In 1988, Barbara Wilson and her married man published the first edition of the Wilson Reading System® (WRS) to help students who were unable to learn through other didactics strategies. Nearly thirty years later, Barbara and her squad have certified approximately 25,000 teachers for WRS Level I — including i hundred percentage of the faculty here at Churchill.
Nosotros were honored to talk with Barbara Wilson about how this landmark plan came to be, the communication she gives students and parents, and what information technology's like to picket a student learn to read after years of frustration.
Barbara Wilson, founder of Wilson Reading System
Barbara Wilson is the founder of the Wilson Reading Arrangement®.
Churchill: The Wilson® website says your organization is dedicated to "literacy for all." What makes reading so important to yous?
Barbara Wilson: For as well long, people have believed a certain population of students could not learn to read, and information technology'south non true. Students are capable of becoming contained and literate — information technology only takes the right blazon of instruction. We believe all students are able to acquire if teachers know how to teach.
"For too long, people accept believed a certain population of students could not learn to read, and it'south not truthful. Students are capable of becoming independent and literate — it merely takes the right type of teaching."
Churchill: What motivated you to develop a reading curriculum and training program?
BW: I was doing testing for students referred to special educational activity in a pocket-size school district. I was the one person — simple through loftier school — who tested all the students referred to special didactics. I kept seeing that the well-nigh mutual reason for referral was reading. Initially, I felt that we had solutions to address their reading bug. We would write IEPs and individualize different programs. However, as I was doing 3-year reevaluations, I saw that a lot of the students had made almost no progress after three years.
I felt that there had to exist a way to teach these kids. That'due south what led me to find the training program at Massachusetts General Infirmary, where I was trained in Orton-Gillingham methodology. I continued working there for the next 5 years part time with adults diagnosed with dyslexia, and at the aforementioned time, started a learning eye with my hubby, Ed, to work with students of all ages who could not read due to dyslexia.
Churchill: What do students with dyslexia crave that other students may not?
BW: The biggest deviation is that students with dyslexia need to be taught word construction systematically, incrementally, and with mastery. They demand a lot of opportunities to utilise their decoding skills in text that is limited to give-and-take structures that have been straight taught. Students with dyslexia develop fluency incrementally and they demand substantial practise with specific word patterns for mastery.
"Students with dyslexia need to be taught word structure systematically, incrementally, and with mastery."
Churchill: What advice do yous take for students who are struggling to read? For their parents?
BW: I've had many, many conversations with students who have not succeeded, including many adults. I tell students that the teaching they demand is very different from the teaching that didn't work for them in the past. What they need, instead, is to go back to the very beginning to build upward a deep agreement of word structure. Nosotros go footstep past stride then that it doesn't overwhelm them with too many things at once.
I tell them it'south going to have time, merely they should quickly see the difference. You're going to understand one design of words and and then we're going to add the next ane. With each one, y'all're going to exist able to read more and more words.
That's the same advice that I share with parents, so they understand that they will not come across the firsthand carryovers until enough pieces are in place, and that takes time.
Churchill: How practice you depict the Wilson Reading Organisation® to someone who has never heard of it?
BW: The Wilson Reading System ® is a reading and spelling program for students with language-based learning disabilities such as dyslexia. It's designed for students in grade ii through adults who take not succeeded in learning to read with traditional methods. It'due south a very step-past-footstep system that follows the principles necessary for individuals with dyslexia to succeed with reading and writing.
Churchill: What makes the Wilson Reading System® effective?
BW: In that location are two parts to that. One is certainly the materials and components of the Wilson Reading System ® , which are specifically written and designed for individuals with dyslexia who really demand to have the language broken downward for them. The other is that it has to be taught in a very multisensory, structured mode which doesn't present too much at one time. Perhaps that'due south the biggest thing — that both the materials and the instruction don't overwhelm the students with things that haven't been taught or mastered.
Churchill: Why is teacher training so of import to the Wilson® plan?
BW: The materials are only as effective as the teacher. The training is key considering in order to teach an individual with dyslexia successfully, teachers demand to know how to be diagnostic. They demand to understand, in depth, the construction of language, which they don't mostly come up out of college knowing. Near chiefly, they demand to know how to have that knowledge and apply it to instructing a pupil who doesn't instinctively learn that.
Barbara Wilson speaking at Churchill.
Barbara Wilson speaks to a group of Churchill students and teachers.
Churchill: What practise y'all think is the nigh essential affair a instructor can take abroad from a Wilson® training?
BW: I call back that it would be learning how to be diagnostic and break down the tasks that are critical for reading and spelling.
Churchill: What are the things that can happen when a instructor doesn't have proper literacy training?
BW: Teachers go into teaching with a passion to help kids, and they go discouraged when they can't do that. They requite their best effort with what they know, but unfortunately, they may teach things too quickly, which overwhelms the student and doesn't permit them to attain mastery. As that pupil progresses through the grades, they get more overwhelmed and behind. Teachers often get discouraged despite their best efforts.
Churchill: What'south it like to lookout man a pupil go from struggling to read, to developing a real understanding?
BW: It's astonishing. When I worked with the many adults who could not read, as they learned, they were overwhelmed to see that in that location was a way to assistance them. It was and so sad to know how not existence able to read had impacted their lives so much. It is never likewise late to learn, just I know immediate how critical information technology is to place and instruct students equally young as possible to salve the children and their parents from the pain of failure.
"It is never too late to acquire, but I know immediate how critical it is to identify and instruct students as young as possible to relieve the children and their parents from the pain of failure."
Churchill: Outside of Wilson®, are there whatsoever programs or initiatives that you're excited about in the area of literacy?
BW: Right now I'm very excited to run into developments in literacy instruction that take students reading for knowledge rather than for the sole purpose of developing isolated skills. I'm extremely interested in literacy initiatives that are really thematic, with instruction that goes deep on a topic with both informational and narrative text. The kids get excited nigh that topic, and they're learning the skills as they're investigating the topic, equally opposed to having the skills themselves exist the end goal.
Source: https://www.churchillstl.org/blog/barbara-wilson/
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