RSW Group

RSW GROUP operates under the Oregon nonprofit the Language and Literacy Fund.  RSW Group is comprised of literacy specialists, special education teachers, academic language therapists and educational diagnosticians all of whom have extensive training and experience working with students who may or may not have been diagnosed with dyslexia or other learning differences. The specialists of RSW Group are employed by the Language and Literacy Fund to support teachers who provide reading, spelling and writing instruction in the post-secondary and K-12 setting.

We offer training and support through the following:   one and two day seminars discussing the foundations of reading instruction and information about dyslexia and other learning differences.  We also offer a series of workshops. These workshops are based on Orton-Gillingham, a structured approach to literacy instruction. This approach is multisensory (auditory, visual and kinesthetic, i.e., letter formation and writing through dictation) sequential and cumulative.  Teachers will learn to apply the principles of Orton-Gillingham with students who struggle to learn to read, spell and write. 

The approach is phonics based and includes spelling rules and generalizations, concept of syllables, syllable divisions, morphology (prefixes, suffixes, roots/base words), reading fluency (accuracy, rate and prosody) and automaticity, vocabulary, semantics, syntax, comprehension and writing.  Intrinsic to the training is the ability to spiral back to earlier instruction in order to layer increasingly higher-level knowledge and practices.

A guiding principle of the training is that it is student-focused.  This is a critical component of the seminars and workshops.  We believe that a deep knowledge of the five essential components of effective reading instruction* is necessary; however, this knowledge is not sufficient until the learning abilities and differences of each student are also understood.  

All training is customized to the student population to be supported and to the teachers who will support them.  We recognize that many school districts use or will use the Balanced Literacy curricula for reading instruction.  RSW Group training is based on Structured Literacy or the Orton-Gillingham approach.  We believe and are committed to demonstrating how Balanced and Structured Literacy dovetail to meet the needs of all students in reading instruction.  
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We recommend that the seminars and workshops be taken consecutively with RSW Group because, just as Orton-Gillingham instruction is structured, sequential and cumulative, so too are the teacher seminars and workshops.  However, if the training cannot be taken in sequence with RSW Group the seminars and workshops are also priced separately.  RSW Group has committed a portion of all receipts from its training courses to the Language and Literacy Fund scholarships offered to eligible students.