Over 20 years ago, Louisa Moats, EdD, published the article, Teaching Reading is Rocket Science (1999), where she examined the skills and knowledge required to teach reading. Preceding the monumental report released by the National Reading Panel (2001), Dr. Moats outlined necessary research-based practices to mitigate reading failure, especially for students with reading difficulties and diagnosed disabilities as well as English Language Learners.

In June 2019, state-of-the-art, custom electroencephalography, or EEG labs, were installed at the Manhattan and Westchester campuses of The Windward School in preparation for the start of the first research study of the Windward/Haskins Collaborative Project. Predicting Literacy Outcomes at The Windward School (P.L.O.W.) set out to utilize neuroimaging measures (with EEG) and standardized behavioral measures to give insight into the evidence-based instructional intervention model at The Windward School and to shed light on why some students respond to interventions more readily than others despite having similar neurocognitive profiles.

250 educators and parents participated in the May 20 live webinar “Creating Literacy-Rich Home Environments” presented by The Windward Institute’s newest faculty member, Molly Ness, PhD. 

Enjoy reading The Beacon Spring 2020 issue now!

The new research that will be conducted by Dr. Pugh and Dr. Hoeft at Haskins Laboratories will try to measure both the negative impact on reading caused by widespread school closures and whether the use of remote learning tools can reduce ill effects on young students.

In response to the current crisis, the Haskins Laboratories Global Literacy Hub community has created webinars and other online resources to help teachers and families mitigate the COVID-19 slide. All of these resources, including GraphoGame, are being made available to the Windward School community.

As a supplement to The Windward School’s virtual classrooms, Windward families will soon be able to have free access to the English version of GraphoGame, an online learning program for  students in grades 1 to 3, developed at The University of Jyväskylä in Finland which, along with Windward, is a fellow member of the Haskins Global Literacy Hub. 

The COVID-19 outbreak disrupted the original plans for the Windward/Haskins in-school research study; however the project is adapting to the current situation, by implementing virtual behavioral data collection. The researchers are looking forward to exploring opportunities for understanding the impacts of remote learning.

Harvard's Dr. George Church, PhD, shares how his childhood strategy of "reading the pictures" proved to be advantageous for his scientific studies. 

Since its release in 2003, the first edition of Overcoming Dyslexia, written by Sally E. Shaywitz, MD, co-director of the Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity, has been regarded as one of the most influential books in the field. For the second edition of the book, published in March 2020, The Windward School was selected for special praise and inclusion by the co-authors, Dr. Shaywitz and Jonathan Shaywitz, MD.