The Windward Institute Celebrates One Year Anniversary and Beyond The mission of The Windward Institute is to increase childhood literacy rates by disrupting the educational status quo to save more lives. Since its official launch in January 2020, the Institute has delivered on its purpose and pursued a number of exciting and promising endeavors. The WI’s journey during the past year and a half has been guided by its four foundational pillars: Providing professional development Forming partnerships with leading educational
institutions Advocating for students with languagebased
learning disabilities Expanding The Windward School’s reputation
and expertise. The Windward Institute welcomed three new faculty members—Deirdre McKechnie, MS Ed; Molly Ness, PhD; and Paul Riccomini, PhD—to join the robust team of instructors who deliver the Institute’s signature researchbased courses and workshops on the topics of reading, writing, math, and other key language and social skills. Nearly 900 teachers, practitioners, tutors, and parents/guardians have enrolled in both the WI’s new offerings, such as “The Reinvigorated Read Aloud” and “Strategies to Promote Mathematical Reasoning,” and core courses, such as “Expository Writing” and “Multisensory Reading Instruction: PAF.” The agile WI team pivoted quickly to transition all of these courses online to provide a highquality experience for the courses in a virtual format. To address topics related to equity in education, the Institute also launched a webinar series that brought researchers and experts in the fields of reading, language, learning disabilities, executive function, and educational neuroscience to present accessible information and skills to the public. The series became a facet of the WI’s partnership with the Haskins Global Literacy Hub. As The Windward Institute continues its work into its second year, the WI remains committed to serving as a resource for the highest standard of researchbased professional development, continuing to partner with communities focused on improving educational outcomes for all children, and being steadfast in its advocacy for children with languagebased learning disabilities.
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The Compass Spring/Summer 2021
Fall Community Lecture on October 22, 2020
Momentous Milestones February 2020 — Began new Early Childhood Educator Seminar series to empower early childhood teachers with the tools they need to accurately identify predictors of future reading problems and help to prevent the burgeoning effects of not learning to read May 2020 — Completed first year of the research study, Predicting Literacy Outcomes at The Windward School, studying 23 participants through the Windward/Haskins Collaborative Project. This included training of Windward faculty on EEG collection and the completion of the first round of data collection with standardized behavioral measures in Windward’s stateoftheart inschool electroencephalogram (EEG) labs. October 2020 — First virtual Fall Community Lecture, “Parenting and Educating Kids in the Time of Anxiety,” featuring Rachel Busman, PsyD, engages 750 participants from 15 countries November 2020 — Dr. John J. Russell and Magdalena Zavalía Miguens present at 2020 DISFAM (Asociación Dislexia y Familia) National and Iberican Congress to an international audience of more than 2,900 policy makers, educators, school leaders, and literacy researchers from Spain and across Latin and South America December 2020 — Inaugural professional development partnership with Winsome Wishes for Kids and three schools in Jamaica. Thirty kindergarten through third grade educators participated in a virtual, interactive oneday workshop led by Nicole Berkowitz and Diane Happas. April 2021 — First virtual Robert J. Schwartz Lecture, “Early Identification of Dyslexia: Research to Practice,” featuring Hugh Catts, PhD, engages 2,700 participants from 50 states and 44 countries May 2021 — READ Podcast hosted by Danielle Scorrano totals 10,000+ downloads
