Dr Karen Erickson gave an inspiring day-long seminar on this subject at the 15th annual Augmentative Communication in Practice: Scotland Study Day on 8th November. Dr Erickson is the Directory & Literacy Specialist Teacher at the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies, North Carolina, USA.

During the course of her presentation Dr Erickson emphasised the importance of Silent Reading Comprehension, breaking this down to the key components of Word Identification, Language Comprehension and Print Processing beyond Word Identification.
A series of case studies with video clips and a number of useful strategies held the attention of the audience throughout the day.
Further information about the work of the Center for Literacy and Disability Studies can be found at: http://www.med.unc.edu/ahs/clds.

Feedback
Here are a few comments that people made about the Study Day:
“Karen is so articulate, animated and approachable. She offers lots of useful applied suggestions and examples, and the videos and books brought her presentation to life to an even greater extent. Really valuable experience! Thank you!”
“Listening to someone who really knows her stuff and could convey this knowledge to her audience in an easily understandable way was a pleasant change. An excellent speaker.”
“Karen was so positive in her attitude and lots of ideas could be taken forward in every classroom.”
Fantastic, fascinating speaker with great linkup between theory and practice.”

“Brilliant!”