Liz Stepan

My vision is to empower adolescents to drive world-changing innovations and to help them improve their literacy along the way.
Mom of a dyslexic, SLP grad stud

[Liz Stepan @LizStepan]

I believe that some of our best innovators and thinkers are so traumatized by our system that they are underemployed or incarcerated. Our world needs the out-of-box thinkers to be unleashed. And I never want them to feel like they are being held back by not being able to record their thoughts through writing or learn something they need/want to learn through reading.

[Liz Stepan @LizStepan]

@CreditFlex @S_Oberle Thank you!

[Liz Stepan @LizStepan]

@S_Oberle Oh…thank you!

[Liz Stepan @LizStepan]

@S_Oberle Is this why drilling phonemes in isolation feels pointless? - not enough activation for related concepts?

[Liz Stepan @LizStepan]

@PhonicsMom @S_Oberle Hahaha!

[Liz Stepan @LizStepan]

@S_Oberle I've never understood the mechanism to this.

[Liz Stepan @LizStepan]

@S_Oberle Had a young one who sounded out "r-u-g" and then said "carpet" when she went to blend the sounds. haha

[Liz Stepan @LizStepan]

@DonKAriel @anenglishteachr wow wow wow; self-awareness is huge! I would have to spend hours of training that in those with the deficit after a stroke!

[Liz Stepan @LizStepan]

@DonKAriel @anenglishteachr Super interesting. And there is a difference between a TBI/incident rather than generalized decline. The area of the brain affected vs a global difference. It is interesting to see her engagement and will be interesting to see if she can do longer bits each time.

[Liz Stepan @LizStepan]

@PhonicsMom @mandylorianm @ExTeach4AZ You can use any reading material and words with EBLI - it is more of a structure you follow than a set program. So I can find Spanish books! Will be great!

[Liz Stepan @LizStepan]

@anenglishteachr @teachthemx3 The high school students were very surprised when I would tell them that my resources were not effective or if I hadn't done something well. I like modeling that I will try again the next day to improve!

[Liz Stepan @LizStepan]

@PhonicsMom @mandylorianm @ExTeach4AZ Interesting about the volunteers...everything feels different since covid. And honestly, I see a lot of ppl seeing so much fraud and money being tossed at things...many are not feeling motivated to volunteer as much.
Very interested to follow your changes...

[Liz Stepan @LizStepan]

@PhonicsMom @mandylorianm @ExTeach4AZ I really need to find some time for Webster and your resources! I have just been drowning in new information but I need to find things that ppl can utilize outside of expensive trainings!

[Liz Stepan @LizStepan]

I ended up doing the training in EBLI myself for the same reason. There are many programs that work well! The key is finding what the child will do and not hate! Creating lots of positive experiences is important too - my son went from having a mixed receptive/expressive language disorder to "within functional limits". I claim it was hours of audiobooks! He learned lots of vocabulary and grammar that he wasn't getting through reading.

[Liz Stepan @LizStepan]

@PhonicsMom @mandylorianm @ExTeach4AZ This book looks great for getting the segmenting and blending down! Each student varies so much on what they struggle with! It continues to blow my mind!

[Liz Stepan @LizStepan]

I helped a man in clinic with relearning reading after a brain accident. His auditory was his strength and his visual was his weakness. I utilized the auditory pathways to teach sounds rather than focusing on drilling the letters. But he still had the mapping of the words in his memory - he could stop and close his eyes and say "E-Y-E-S oh that spells eyes!". We had to reinforce the visual letter recognition first.

[Liz Stepan @LizStepan]

@DonKAriel @anenglishteachr Ahh! Ok, the 20 min morning loop is the video of Prime Sense?
I fully agree - brain training is brain training whether it is learning an instrument, learning to read, learning a motor pattern, etc.
Oh my goodness! That is huge...I'm a little stunned..and hopeful for you!!

[Liz Stepan @LizStepan]

@SoLInTheWild Awesome! Using writing with Teach Your Child would really solidify code knowledge!

[Liz Stepan @LizStepan]

@DonKAriel @anenglishteachr I’m not smart enough for PrimeSense. Haha. Still trying to figure it out!

[Liz Stepan @LizStepan]

Your program cuts the fluff and gets down to the real needs in literacy. I feel like the best programs are the simple ones made by ppl who really want to help and are actually in the trenches themselves.

The sentence repetition task is a good screener. I was happy to see it on the TAPS for auditory processing. And you can do it in an informal way as well - just have them repeat sentences while reading. It wouldn’t be normed but you can get a good idea of their difficulties.