Here is a comprehensive series, drawing on current research from the National Institutes of Child Health, to understand and improve the teaching of all students at risk of not learning to read or do math.

Learning disAbilities, Learning Abilities is a six episode video series, with topics including reading, dyslexia, phonemic awareness, multisensory instruction, dyscalculia or math disabilities and ADD/ADHD. Participants include Reid Lyon, Louisa Moats, Marilyn Adams, Martha Denkla, Barbara Wilson, Joyce Steeves and Nancy Mather.

The methods described in this series are intended to unlock those abilities in children who do not naturally intuit written language. These methods will also help all children read better, particularly those who are now entering school with learning problems that come from a lack of exposure to print.

Topics covered in series:

1. How to recognize and understand learning disabilities
2. Understanding explicit multisensory structured teaching and phonemic awareness
3. Explicit multisensory structured teaching demonstrated in a variety of classrooms, including whole language
4. Helping parents understand advocacy and assessments; improving parent-school communication
5. How ADD/ADHD connects to LD
6. The problem of dyscalculia and math disabilities

The series is divided into the following programs:

Episode 1: Introduction Defines the spectrum of learning disabilities, with illustrations of what they look and sound like, how we know if a child is showing signs of LD. Clarifies dyslexia and ADD as distinct from other learning problems. The importance of phonological awareness and its effect on reading ability. (45 minutes)

Episode 2: The Teaching A full explanation of explicit, multisensory, systematic teaching, based on language structure, demonstrated by a variety of teaching situations. What phonemes are. A kindergarten class doing exercises to teach phonemic awareness and to identify the lack of such awareness. Moving from invented spelling to regular spelling. (55 minutes)

Episode 3: Reading is Not a Natural Skill Showing children with LD or at risk of learning problems, mastering the structure of written language and moving out of special education. The advantages of early intervention. How the inclusion of explicit, multisensory, systematic teaching, based on language structure increases the value of whole language for all children. The economy of training teachers. Profiles of non-reading children becoming readers. (58 minutes)

Episode 4: Children & Parents & Schools & Strengths Parent-school communication; the importance of parent advocacy; a close-up look at how schools can help. Understanding an assessment with Nancy Mather, Ed.D., University of Arizona; Louisa Cook Moats, Ed.D., Gloria Tannenbaum, Ph.D., Stressing the ability in children with learning disabilities.(45 minutes)

Episode 5: ADD/ADHD/LD Views from medical professionals, including neurologist Martha Bridge Denckla, M.D., Johns Hopkins University Medical School, ADD specialist Betsy Busch, M.D., Tufts University Medical School, and parents, teachers and children on ADD/ADHD and how they create learning problems. (30 minutes)

Episode 6: Teaching Math Joyce Steeves, Ed.D., a master teacher and teacher trainer from Johns Hopkins University, demonstrates the connection between math learning problems, dyslexia and attention disorders and also how they differ. Dr. Steeves has devised a lesson plan for math teaching which she sets out in detail for a class of teachers and then shows the plan in action with two groups of children, a demonstration of theoretical and practical math teaching that turns out to be fun. Sessions with Robin Rogers-Browne, Educational Therapist, doing the kind of teaching that helped a student who found numbers impossibly challenging. (51 minutes)


Available in DVD format.

Running time: 284 minutes