WEBINAR - Supporting Literacy Acquisition

Supporting Literacy Acquisition

This webinar will present information and eclectic methods on how young children with and without SEN can learn to read successfully.  Information includes:

• Language development
• The essential nature of reading
• Alphabet knowledge
• The best order for teaching sounds
• Working Memory
• Phonological Awareness Development
• The dual route approach to reading (Look and Say plus phonics)
• The triangular model of reading
• The three phases of literacy acquisition
• Recruiting parents and grandparents for reading practice at home
• Recruiting the Peter Hatcher method
• Spelling
• The speed of teaching regarding literacy
• Developing reading comprehension 
• Reading fluency, reading speed and reading prosody
• The three rules for teaching literacy
• Assessment
• Q & A (15 minutes)

Our Facilator on this webinar is Dr Pauline Cogan

Pauline Cogan (neé Kiely) is a native of Dungarvan, Co Waterford. She was educated at Mercy Convent, Dungarvan and trained as a Primary School Teacher in Carysfort Training College, Blackrock, Co Dublin in 1967.  She graduated with a BA in languages (1970) and a Higher Diploma in Education (1971) from University College Dublin.

Her marriage to Frank Cogan, a diplomat in the Department of Foreign Affairs brought her to New York, Geneva, Dublin, Brussels, Tehran, Rome and Vienna.  She worked as a teacher and studied Psychology, Neurology and Linguistics in these locations.  She obtained an MSc in Neurolinguistics from VUB (Free University of Brussels – Faculty of Medicine & Pharmacology) in 1995.

Pauline worked as a Neurolinguist in a multi-disciplinary medical/paramedical team at Brugmann Hospital in Brussels where she was engaged in rehabilitation of individuals with brain trauma and strokes, assisting  medical teams on the Locked-In Syndrome and she developed a test to help neurologists recognise the condition.  

Pauline has had a life-long interest in social and educational justice with a principal focus on learning difficulties.   For over a decade she has intensely studied the causes of literacy difficulties in children and has operationalised this knowledge into child and classroom friendly tasks.  She was awarded her PhD by Trinity College, Dublin, in 2012, through research in this field.

With the help of teachers, the school community, the DES and other bodies and driven by research, policy and practice, Pauline has developed TEST2r.  This is a comprehensive test used to screen and pin-point the emergent literacy skills which a 5 – 6 year old child needs to be taught.  It also provides an individual report on each child and pointers to intervention/resources. 

Pauline is an honorary member of the Board of Dyslexia International Tools & Technologies which is a portal to UNESCO.  She is on the National Executive Committee of the Irish Learning Support Association (ILSA) and is the Editor of LEARN – the peer reviewed journal of that body.  She is also a Chartered Psychologist of the Psychological Society of Ireland.