Beginning her career as a classroom teacher in Central Harlem in New York City and maintaining that position for ten years, Eileen Marzola earned her doctorate in Learning Disabilities from Teachers College, Columbia University. After obtaining her degree, she taught graduate courses in learning disabilities at Teachers College and Hunter College of the City University of New York for over fifteen years while simultaneously continuing her work as a Resource Room teacher in the New York City public schools. The author of several articles on learning disabilities and chapters in books about this topic, Dr. Marzola has most recently been a contributing author for Multisensory Teaching of Basic Language Skills, edited by Judith Birsh and published by Brookes. She has been an invited keynote or featured speaker at almost 100 educational conferences locally, nationally, and internationally.

Eileen Marzola has been honored for her work several times, including being named a "Distinguished Honoree" by the International Dyslexia Association in recognition of her "outstanding contributions to the education of individuals with dyslexia." She was also awarded Congressional Recognition in Washington, D.C. for "Pioneering Technology Interventions" and was granted the New York State Teacher of the Year Award by the Council for Exceptional Children. She is immediate past president of the International Dyslexia Association-NY and also served on the Board of Directors of Everyone Reading in New York City. Currently, she is an educational consultant to public and private schools and also maintains a private practice teaching children with dyslexia and related learning disorders in Manhattan.

TOPICS AND DETAILS OF SESSIONS
1. MATH ASSESSMENT IN GRADES K-6: This presentation begins with an overview of the kinds of issues that can stand in the way of success for young children learning math. Formal and informal measures to identify students' math challenges plus guides to choose and use progress monitoring tools to evaluate effectiveness of instruction will be included.

2. MASTERING BASIC MATH FACTS AND BASIC MATH CALCULATIONS: Strategies to facilitate students' mastery of basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division math facts plus activities to translate these skills into more complex math calculations will be presented in this session.

3. MATH WORD PROBLEM SOLVING (K-6) : Effective strategies to lift pertinent information and identify appropriate plans of action to solve math word problems using all four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) will be the focus of this presentation. Math games and activities available through the internet and apps for the i-pad or other tablets that can be used to strengthen math skills at home will also be shared.

Dr. Haynes received his bachelors and doctoral degrees from Harvard University and a Master of Science degree in speech-language pathology from San Francisco State University. He has had over thirty years of hands-on experience working with children and adolescents with dyslexia and related language learning disabilities. He teaches courses in spoken and written language disorders and in language, culture and cognition for the Master of Science in Speech-Language Pathology Program and the Certificate of Advanced Study (CAS) Program for Reading Specialists at the MGH Institute of Health Professions in Boston, Massachusetts. In addition, he conducts research, mentors thesis students, supervises graduate students in the Institute's Speech-Language and Literacy Center.

In June 2013 Dr. Haynes was inducted into the International Academy of Researchers in Learning Disabilities, and in 2012 received the Nancy T. Watts Award for Excellence in Teaching – the highest prize given to a faculty member at the MGH Institute. He was inducted into the International Dyslexia Association’s Hall of Honor in 2009, and received the Association’s Margaret Rawson Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.

Dr. Haynes served as a teacher, Research Coordinator and Director of Speech-Language Services at the Landmark School from 1979-1991, where he and colleagues developed one of the nation's first language-based curricula for children with dyslexia and expressive language impairments.

In 1991 Dr. Haynes and colleagues in the Graduate Program in Communication Sciences and Disorders at MGH Institute helped to design and establish coursework and placements that offer the option of dual teacher certification in both Speech-Language and in Reading.

Dr. Haynes has authored or co-authored over fifty publications and has been Principal or Co-Principal Investigator on over $1,100,000 of grants at the Institute and on over $2,550,000 of externally funded studies in the Middle East, where he is helping colleagues to develop diagnostic and intervention tools for spoken and written Arabic.

He has chaired or co-chaired several international conferences for the International Dyslexia Association (IDA) and currently serves as Senior Advisor on the Global Partners Committee of IDA's Board of Directors. He serves as editorial board member or as an invited reviewer for several reading and speech-language journals.

TOPICS AND DETAILS OF SESSIONS
Kindergarten Identification of Grade School Reading and Writing Skills (keynote) If children at risk for reading failure are caught early before they fail, certain structured interventions can greatly enhance their likelihood of attaining basic literacy skills. This lecture and discussion will use a "Simple View of Reading" model for examining oral written and cognitive predictors of grade school reading skills in grades 2 and 3. The influences of grapheme-phoneme transparency in different languages will be addressed as well. Diagnostic patterns will be linked to concrete, research proven interventions.

"Micro-Discourse" Strategies for Enhancing Oral-Written Comprehension and Expression (break-out session)

This practically oriented session will employ lecture and audience interaction to help teachers and educational therapists to examine strategies for scaffolding word-, sentence-, paragraph- and essay-level expression. Oral and written methods in the areas of detail elaboration, “micro-discourse” generation, and cohesion skills will be illustrated. The strategies and techniques are appropriate for typically developing children in grades 2-5 and for students with dyslexia and related language learning difficulties in later grade school, middle school and high school. Time will be allotted for questions and answers.

Strategies for Supporting Children’s Early Language and Pre-Literacy Skills (break-out session)

This practice-oriented presentation is tailored to parents and professionals interested in techniques for early identification and support for preschool language and literacy skills. Diagnostic predictors of components of school age literacy will be reviewed briefly. The majority of the session will focus on discussion of research-based techniques for early intervention, includingstrategies for identifying and exploiting family routines. Time will be allotted for questions and answers.

Kate Garnett is Professor of Special Education at Hunter College in New York City, where - over decades - she has been developing the HC Graduate Learning Disabilities Program. Before Hunter, she taught elementary and secondary students with learning disabilities and was the founding teacher of The Churchill School, a special school for LD kids. Professor Garnett has worked in hundreds of schools -- public, private, and charter -- and has presented and published widely on vocabulary, fluency, inclusion, reading methods, and math disabilities.

She designed and developed the HC Learning Lab, which prepares special educators while providing special instruction for LD students. In 1996, the Lab received the first Allyn & Bacon/DLD Award for Exemplary LD Program, a national commendation. The heart of Hunter’s program, this Lab has expanded to multiple school sites and currently serves more than 100 students per year.

Professor Garnett consults widely. Over seven years, she developed the special education training and service model for Edison Schools nationwide. She also has consulted extensively with NYC public and charter schools, most recently partnering with KIPP, Uncommon, and Achievement First schools on a teacher preparation venture that morphed into RELAY Graduate School of Education, where she continues to consult.

Professor Garnett presents on math disabilities, vocabulary building, reading disabilities, and effective practices for LD students.  She has authored dozens of articles, chapters and monographs including most recently, Math Foundation Guide (Tom Snyder Productions) and the Fluency chapter in Judith Birsh’s 2011 edition of Multisensory Teaching of Basic Language Skills.

Her undergraduate degree, with a major in Literature, was from Bennington College. Her doctoral studies were in Special Education/Learning Disabilities/Reading at Teachers College, Columbia U. where she was granted an assistantship in the federally-funded LD Research Institute. Deeply grateful for years of support and collegial sorority, Kate offers many many thanks to Jeannette Fleischner, Margaret Jo Shepherd, and Eileen Marzola.

Learning Disabilities + Math = 2 Kettles-of-fish
Learning Disabilities + Math = 2 Kettles-of-Fish
  1 = interference, glitches, slippage in math performance
  2 = weak number sense + spatial/conceptual sense in math foundation

When a student experiences difficulties learning math, what's going on?
Mis-targeted instructional approaches? Problems of language, attention, memory? Dyscalculia/math disability?

Current neuro-psychological work sheds light on cognitive underpinnings of math development. Current broad initiatives around math instruction are similarly illuminating. Opportunity knocks: time to shift how we teach math, drawing on these converging currents which, fortunately, reveal important insights into math teaching for youngsters with learning disabilities.

This keynote explores "LD and Math" within these current frameworks, providing examples of:
 LD students' math needs – and trajectories – through the years from preschool to adulthood
 Variation in math dilemmas – from cognitive glitches affecting skill-development to profound difficulty mentally representing concepts.
 Targeted math supports

Title: Looking under the Covers: Math and LD students Grade 6-12

Description: Case Studies and Tools for Assessing
How to start with LD students who emerge from elementary math woefully unprepared?
Where are the breakdowns? What are the repairs?

This presentation addresses:
 Assessing critical elements of math foundations – looking under the covers
 Backtracking –to shore up the foundation, while also
 Moving forward, with instructional skill, to "higher" levels of math

Title: Math Materials, Methods and Mindsets: Targeting Resources for Grades 6-12 Students with Learning Disabilities

Description:
This presentation addresses:
. Fresh directions and robust resources, including CGI and CCSS/Engage NY
· Fitting intervention into secondary math instruction
· Growing minds and making thinking visible

Affecting the affective aftermath of persistent math-learning problems

Lydia H. Soifer, Ph.D., a language pathologist, has more than forty years of experience in clinical, private and university teaching and is a frequent presenter at professional conferences across the country.Dr. Soiferis the Founder and Director of The Soifer Center for Learning and Child Development, a multidisciplinary diagnostic, remedial and advocacy setting of psychologists, language and speech pathologists, special educators, reading teachers, parent trainers and advocates. As a parent educator, teacher trainer, educational advocate, and staff developer, she specializes in the role of language in the development of children’s learning, literacy, behavior, and social-emotional development. Since 1992, she has been an Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and faculty member in the Early Intervention Training Institute, both at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

In 1998 Dr. Soifer was appointed the Executive Director of the Children’s Development and Education Foundation (renamed the Best Children’s Foundation), an organization devoted to training parents and educators in the dynamics of child development. Dr. Soifer is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Eagle Hill School in Greenwich, CT. She serves on the professional advisory boards of Smart Kid with LD, the Wonderplay Conference of the 92nd Street Y, and as well as being a special language and program consultant to The Gateway Schools of New York. Dr. Soifer has acted as a consultant to numerous private and public schools, advising faculty on the identification and enhancementof learning for children with a variety of learning styles. Additionally, she has developed, customized and led many workshops and in-service training programs at schools including the Solomon Schechter School in White Plains, NY; the Eagle Hill School in Greenwich, CT; the Princeton Day School in Princeton, NJ; and the Mamaroneck Union Free Public Schools. From 1997 to 2010 she was the language consultant to the Windward School and remains a faculty member of the Windward Teacher Training Institute. Dr. Soifer has been the language and educational consultant to the Gillen Brewer School and Abraham Joshua Heschel Schools since 2007. An engaging and informative presenter, Dr. Soifer is a speaker regularly sought after by parents’ organizations. She is also a frequent presenter at professional conferences across the country including the International Dyslexia Association (IDA), the American Speech Language and Hearing Association (ASHA), and the Counsel of Parents Advocates and Attorneys (COPAA).

Additionally, Dr. Soifer created the language assessment portion of a software product WordWeaver for Speech and Language Assessment. She is the author of a chapter entitled, The Development of Oral Language and Its Relationship to Literacy for a textbook published in September 1999 by Brookes, Multisensory Structured Language Teaching: Theory and Practice, now in its third edition (2011), as well as a contributor to local publications.

TOPICS AND DETAILS OF SESSIONS
How Listening and Talking Become Reading and Writing: Understanding and Assessing the Crucial Oral/Aural Foundations of Literacy

Session 1: A Cognitive-Linguistic Perspective on Oral/Aural Language Development
A dynamic conceptualization of oral/aural language development that extends beyond traditional views of expressive and receptive language to the fluid interaction of content, use and form will be explained. Language will be defined as an active, rule-governed system that is an essential component of cognition. This view of language will be discussed in terms of the role of language in aspects of cognition and the impact of cognitive functions, e.g., attention, executive functions, memory, information processing. Also, considered will be the contributions of experience and affect.

Session 2: Transitions to Literacy Built on Oral Language
The components of language will be discussed as the underpinnings of specific aspects of literacy. Language form, the observable features of language, the sound, word, and sentence structures of oral language are the foundations on which decoding and spelling are built and aspects of meaning and intention are communicated. Language content, often referred to as semantics is the vast array of words we know, our vocabulary and all we know about them, as well as our world knowledge, conceptual knowledge and experiential knowledge. It is a crucial and very teachable aspect of reading comprehension and writing. Language use, often referred to as pragmatics is the aspect of how and why we talk for different purposes. These pragmatic skills have a vital role in literacy development, which are related to our knowledge of comprehension and production of both narrative and expository texts.

Session 3: Assessing Oral and Aural Language to Understand Literacy Difficulties
Well-developed oral/aural language skills are essential to literacy development and academic success. A properly conceptualized and conducted language evaluation will provide valuable information to educators for understanding and educating students with language learning disabilities. A comprehensive cognitive language evaluation protocol will be defined and described with a discussion of how to use this information to facilitate successful teaching and learning.

vandana saxena is an associate professor with Central Institute of Education (CIE), Department of Education, University of Delhi, India. She has done her masters in Physics & Education followed by doctoral degree in science education from university of Delhi. Her research work focuses upon developing enabling learning environments in multi-ability regular school classrooms. She has taught in a school for four years before joining the university of Delhi. She was the manager of CIE, Basic Experimental School for two years. She was the principal investigator of three different projects granted by MHRD India, UGC and R&D University of Delhi. She has organized many seminars and symposium including one national level seminar. She has been invited as a pedagogy expert by various school organizations including Kendriya Vidhayalaya for in-service teacher training Programmes. She has been a course tutor, evaluator and member, examination moderation board, for a course conducted by Roehampton University, London. She is on panel of experts with united states-India education forum (USIEF)/ Fulbright Commission in India. She is member, Editorial Review Board for Science Education Review; on-line journal, published in Australia. She delivered S.S. Bhatnagar Memorial Lecture at Swami ShraddhaNand College, Delhi University. She has presented papers at several international/national conference & seminars organized in India and abroad. She has been invited as a resource person for the refresher courses conducted for the university teachers by academic staff college, UGC at Rajasthan university, BPSM university Sonipat and Kaumau university. She has developed new course for M.Phil programme and has contemporised the science pedagogy courses for bachelor of education programme of university of Delhi. She has guided more the twenty dissertations for the master of education programme and has six scholars working for their doctoral degree with her. She has authored two edited books and has written for many national and international publications. She has been diligently promoting the case of equal opportunities for all. Even while spelling her name, she believes that all the alphabets are equally significant and the thought is more important than the person, so a conscious use of lowercasing for the name.

She can be contacted at vsaxena69@gmail.com

TOPICS AND DETAILS OF SESSIONS
Diverse ability in a regular school: Issues and Challenges

It is only unrealistic to think of a group of students being homogeneous even if they all share the same genes. Accepting diversity among children is probably the first step towards nurturing their educational experiences. The process of Individualized pedagogies capacitated to address the learning needs of each child requires the system to reinvent itself. The systemic overhaul, curricular appropriation and pedagogical inventiveness are three essential dimensions for approaching the goal of child focused education. This interaction is planned to deliberate upon the related issues and challenges.

Over twenty six years of teaching experience in general and special education, teacher education, early childhood development, policy analysis and research both in India and abroad. She is currently working as Director, Young Lives, India, University of Oxford and is a visiting Professor, JamiaMilliaIslamia University. A trainedMontessorian and special educator, she has held the post of Director, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Delhi and Director Save the Children, India. She has had the privilege of working as Governing Body Member of Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), Member of the Working Group for formulating the NationaL Policy on Early Childhood Care & Education, Joint Review Missions and currently holds positions on various expert committees of Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Ministry of Women & Child Development, as well as Government Institutions such as Rehabilitation Council of India, and Indira Gandhi National Open University.

Her doctoral study was focussed on ‘A study of elementary schools of Delhi, form a perspective of equity and access of children with disabilities’. She worked as the Technical lead for a EU funded Technical Cooperation Fund to Ministry of Human Resource Development,Government of India entitled ‘Exchange of International Best Practices Leading to Innovation in SSA’, (2010-2013) which worked withseven states (AP, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Orissa, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and Jammu & Kashmir) to bring systemic reform in education. She has many publications to her credit.

Research Interest: Early childhood development , pedagogy, inclusion of disadvantaged groups including children with disabilities, comparative education, gender equity and child protection.

E-mail address: renusab@gmail.com

TOPICS AND DETAILS OF SESSIONS

Abstract:

While magnitude and numbers of children with disabilities vary across nations, depending on the specific definition of disability, using the World Health Organization’s definition of individuals with a disability as individuals having a physical, sensory (deafness, blindness), intellectual or mental health impairment, 10% of the world’s young people – are born with a disability or become disabled before age 19.A recent report by UNICEF’s Innocenti Research Center (2007) , estimates that there are approximately 160 million children with disabilities in the developing world. India has made both International and National commitments to realising right of children with disabilities. While efforts such as SarvaShikshaAbhiyan have resulted in increased enrolment and reduction in out-of-school children in 6-14 age group in 2013 estimated at 2.2 million (MHRD, 2013), however children with disabilities continue to remain the most disadvantaged and a large number of children remain deprived of their education rights. Inclusion means that the paradigms providing frameworks for teaching must change. Although successful inclusion demands social and instructional scaffolds to ensure full access; perhaps the most commonly cited source of resistance from teachers is a lack of skills necessary to teach students with disabilities. In general the planning frame of regular classroom teachers is the whole class. They teach to single large groups and incorporate little or no differentiation based on student need. Individualization rarely occurs in general education classrooms and curriculum adaptations are not part of classroom life. Lacking adaptation, inclusion becomes only a matter of where students sit, not where they are provided optimal support. Hence changed delivery models necessitate teaching personnel to adopt new roles. Adequate training and support are essential to increase teachers’ support for inclusion and their ability to deal with change. Successful inclusion demands that general educators learn the basic skills of adaptation and accommodation to meet diverse learning needs in the classroom.

Teacher education faces the challenge to ensure that teachers are provided oppurtunites to build a wider teaching repertoire that addresses and interrogates the pressures of exclusion that exist within the cultures of school, by working on the key aspects of the context, the content of learning and pedagogy (Singh, 2009). The paper will analyse the key issues and challenges that confront the realisation of inclusion of children with disabilities with reference to teacher professional development and offers concrete suggestions for addressing the same.

Professor Dr. (Ms) Anupam Ahuja did her schooling from American School, Prague, Czechoslovakia and Delhi Public School , Mathura Road, New Delhi. She did her Masters in Child Development from M.S. University Vadodra and is a gold medallist in M.Ed. She did her PhD in Education on children with special needs.

During the first three years of her career she taught post graduate students at Lady Irwin College, University of Delhi. Currently she is a Professor in the Department of Education of Groups with Special Needs at the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT). She has three decades of experience in the area of education.

As a consultant to World Bank, UNESCO, UNICEF, Save the Children she has visited more than 30 countries in Asia, Africa and Europe to impart training to teachers and administrators and evaluate educational programmes.

She was invited by the Cambridge University to deliver key note address in prestigious International Special Education Congress on inclusive education. She was the first woman from Asia to be given this honour.

She has authored many national and international publications on inclusive education. Recently the Hindu covered her article as an editorial an achievement given only to selected educationists in the country.

She is the founder and co-editor of EENETAsia (Enabling Education Network)

TOPICS AND DETAILS OF SESSIONS

National Plans of Actions and Inclusive Education: Emerging Issues