Elementary Writing: Multisensory Sentence-Level Instruction & Basic Paragraphology® with Jemicy School

This is a hands-on interactive workshop wherein participants will be actively involved in learning instructional strategies for helping elementary students find success with writing. Participants will begin with learning ways to help students develop sentence-level writing skills using a multisensory approach. Following sentence-level work, participants will be taught the basics of Paragraphology® from the brainstorming process, through understanding color-coding, to understanding how to write basic and expanded paragraphs. Every participant will make a manipulative that acts as a graphic organizer that can easily be made with students.

In this session, participants will learn:

• Sentence-level Writing: parts of speech/grammar, focus on function, simple/bare-bone sentence, compound sentences, expanding ideas, complex sentences
• Paragraph Writing: brainstorming, basic paragraph, paragraph cards, expanded paragraphs (example, reason, category, sequential, compare/contrast)

Audience: elementary school teachers, learning/reading specialists, special educators

About Presenter: Megan McGowan has been a member of the Jemicy School faculty for 28 years. She has served as a classroom teacher, language specialist, and Division Head during that time. She currently serves as the Director of Outreach & Professional Learning. Since 2016 she has been an Associate Faculty of Education at Notre Dame of Maryland University. Ms. McGowan has enjoyed opportunities to share her extensive literacy knowledge at various conferences/venues throughout the country and abroad at several different international schools. In 2022, she was appointed as an associate member of the Office of Overseas Schools, a division of the U.S. Department of State. Ms. McGowan received her B.S. in Special Education from Pennsylvania State University and completed her M.S. in Curriculum and Instruction from Western Maryland College (McDaniel College).