Adult Studies Students to Present at Illinois Reading Conference

Four Adult Studies students who recently completed Trinity’s special education endorsement/certification program have been selected to present at the Illinois Reading Conference (IRC) in March 2012.

Noora Diab, Lisa Gaeger, Melissa Morales, and Lindsey Terrill collaborated on a paper while enrolled in the Secondary Reading Methods course with Dr. Trina Vallone ’99, associate professor of education.

Vallone encouraged the team to submit the paper to the IRC as a possible presentation for the upcoming conference. The team wrote a brief abstract, and the team was then invited to present “A Multiple Intelligence Approach to Reading for English Language Learners (ELL) and Special Education Students” at the IRC’s 44th Annual “Literacy in the Land of Lincoln” Conference on March 15-17, 2012.

During their conference session, Diab, Gaeger, Morales, and Terrill will be teaching reading in the four content areas (language arts, math, social studies, and science) using different learning modalities and technology/media and incorporating strategies for English language learners.

“We hope that people walk away from our session with many strategies that they will be able to use the next day in their schools and classrooms,” said Terrill. “We would like all teachers to think of themselves as reading teachers, no matter which subject(s) they teach, and to understand the importance of teaching students the different ways to read in the different content areas.”

Also presenting at the conference are Vallone and Kelly Lenarz, assistant professor of education. Their presentation is titled “Media Literacy in the Common Core: Strategies for Effective Teaching.”

To learn more about Trinity’s special education endorsement/certification program, visit http://adultstudies.trnty.edu/programs/sped.html.