Connect Through Reading: Empowering Inclusion in Small Literacy with Dr. Denae Lawson

In this podcourse, we are joined by Rochel Lieberman, PhD, CCC-SLP, the founder and owner of WholeStory Speech, a private practice in Brooklyn, New York, serving children with social-emotional challenges, co-treating their parents as an integral part of her work. She is the creator of the WholeStory Approach and a researcher in Story Emotion Social Therapy (SEST), an approach that uses wholesome storytelling to support mindful language and social communication.We explore the WholeStory framework and how storytelling can support regulation, connection, and social communication in children with social-emotional needs. Participants learn how Story Emotion Social Therapy (SEST) integrates speech-language therapy and mental health principles, and provides practical strategies to support families in using storytelling in daily life to strengthen social communication across real-world experiences.

In this podcourse, I interview Rachel Zukose, an ASHA-certified SLP in New York who works in a special-needs school and a medical private practice, about advocacy in action for AAC/assistive technology across school, therapy, and home.Rachel shares cases of school pushback (refusing AAC evals, IEP resistance, and cell phone bans), contrasts smoother adult AAC experiences, and highlights barriers such as parent concerns, lack of team carryover, charging, and limited device knowledge. Strategies include team-wide shared Google Docs for programming requests, parent/staff trainings, low-tech backups, consistent modeling, home “base” locations for devices, leveraging IDEA and state law, using insurance when needed, and providing advocacy resources and templates.

This episode is the third annual SLP Business Connect event joined by panelists Elise Mitchell (school contracting/Therapist Support Network), Marcia Church (private practice/Speech Stars Branding), Calonda Henry (Broad Horizon Speech Therapy/Certified Practice), Sarah Breshears (Social Moguls), and Isabelle De Castro (mobile SLP/Private Practice Connection). The panel discusses overcoming fear and imposter syndrome (mindset shifts, serving the client, accountability), handling legal/financial mistakes with transparency and professional help, and building confidence in promoting services. They also cover legal basics for starting (PLLC/LLC, EIN, NPI 1/2, insurance, business address), when to use lawyers/accountants, contracts/policies for schools and private practice, time management and burnout prevention (boundaries, calendars, phone focus modes), marketing without being on camera, building steady referrals (social media, networking, Google Business Profile), setting rates and insurance vs private pay considerations, choosing business models, and a 30-day startup roadmap.

In this Literacy Connect podcourse, we feature Dr. Denae Lawson’s presentation on evidence-based small-group literacy instruction, differentiation, support for emergent literacy and at-risk populations, and strategies for bilingual/multilingual learners. Denae, a K–2 reading specialist and former literacy interventionist, explains science of reading practices including word mapping (Elkonin boxes), heart words for high-frequency words, oral blending and segmenting, and the importance of spelling. She outlines a 20-minute small-group routine (fluency, blending, segmenting/encoding, student-centered decodable reading, and writing response) with strong management, seating, and accountability. Denae also describes differentiating by tier, prioritizing quality over quantity and maintaining grade-level exposure, and recommends relationship-building, background knowledge/vocabulary development, book access, and home supports like captions.

In this Literacy Connect podcourse, we interview Speech-Language Pathologist Megan Stewart, who has over 20 years experience supporting students with complex communication needs and runs Sensible Literacy. Megan shares ways to incorporate literacy daily (varied opportunities, letter hunts, sound/word games, captions) and explains AAC types and how to adapt activities. She also discusses book characteristics that support language, then reviews AI and assistive technology tools (Canva, Microsoft Reading Coach/Copilot, Tar Heel Reader, text-to-speech, Bookshare, Learning Ally, screen readers, scan pens, page fluffers, overlays) and key resources like Project Core.

In this Literacy Connect podcourse, we are joined by Leanne Dall’s, an ASHA- and EBLI-certified pediatric SLP, as she explains the reciprocal relationship between oral and written language, noting literacy can strengthen phonemic awareness, vocabulary, and metalinguistic skills, and that children with developmental language disorder or speech sound disorders are at risk for reading and writing difficulties. She outlines structured linguistic literacy principles (letters spell sounds; sounds can be spelled with 1–4 letters; multiple spellings per sound; spellings can have multiple pronunciations), links benefits to cognitive load theory, and shares practical ways to incorporate print into sessions, including using letters for phonemic awareness and speech-sound work and integrating curriculum-based disciplinary literacy tasks.

In this Literacy Connect podcourse, we interview Britney Morrish, founder of the Language and Literacy Clinic of Manitoba, about “The ABCs of Assessment” for language and literacy evaluations, including dyslexia.Britnney discusses concerns that schools identify only about 18% of students with developmental language disorder due to limited systematic language screening, contrasts balanced literacy/3-cueing with structured literacy, and reviews using multiple tools (favoring TILLS over CELF for sensitivity/specificity). She describes a quadrant model differentiating dyslexia and DLD (often co-occurring), accommodations like audiobooks and text-to-speech/speech-to-text, and integrating assessment data into intervention using diagnostic screeners, UFLI scope and sequence, and interleaved practice.

In this Literacy Connect podcourse, we are joined by Brianna Guild, a private-practice SLP in Ontario and creator of SLP Literacy Corner, to dive into literacy essentials toolkit for SLPs. Brianna explains reading models (Simple View of Reading, Scarborough’s Reading Rope, Active View of Reading), speech-to-print vs print-to-speech approaches, and notes limited comparative research on “best” programs or phonics scope and sequence. She discusses SLP roles in literacy (direct intervention, indirect support, advocacy/education, research) and key instructional components (phonological/phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension), providing activity ideas such as phoneme isolation, “Say It, Move It, Spell It,” word building/sorts, reading with feeling, word ladders, Frayer models, and inference organizers, often using Pokémon-themed examples and resources like the Pokédex.

In this Literacy Connect podcourse, we are joined by Elizabeth Doherty (“Reading SLP”) in a presentation on the connection between dyslexia and word recognition, outlining objectives to define word recognition, why it’s difficult, key dyslexia characteristics, and how SLPs can support treatment. Elizabeth explains reading as word recognition plus linguistic comprehension (Simple View of Reading) and describes word recognition as progressing from phonological awareness to decoding to orthographic mapping and sight word recognition (Scarborough’s Reading Rope), emphasizing reading is not natural and often requires explicit, repeated instruction. She details challenges including weak phonological awareness in speech/language students, English’s opaque and morphophonemic system, and inconsistent instruction. Dyslexia is defined as a neurobiological, phonological-based difficulty with accurate, fluent word recognition; it is not visual, not intelligence-related, and not a comprehension disorder. She recommends multisensory structured literacy (e.g., Orton-Gillingham), early identification, assistive technology, and highlights overlap with DLD and risk with persistent SSD and apraxia, sharing key resources including IDA fact sheets and an SLP-focused dyslexia guide.

This podcourse is part of the SLP CreativeCon. SLP CreativeCon is an online business conference event for entrepreneurs and creators in the field of Speech-Language Pathology where attendees learnt about social media marketing, branding, private practice, financial planning, time management, and the most important things to do when starting a business. In this episode, I am joined by Alexandria Wynter Russell, M.S., CCC-SLP. Alexandria is a Medical Speech Pathologist, Private Practice Owner, and Business Mentor. She has 10 years of experience as a medical speech pathologist specializing in the adult and senior population with chronic conditions and is helping patients to improve their cognitive, communication, language, and swallowing skills. Her holistic approach to therapy incorporates nutrition, advocacy, health literacy, community, and mental health into patients' plan of care. She has worked for some of the top healthcare systems in Philadelphia including Penn Medicine at Home & Hospice Services, Mercy Home Health, Bayada, and the ACTs Retirement Life Communities.  Over the last decade, she's specialized in treating the adult & senior population across multiple settings including: the home & community, subacute, memory units, psych units, skilled nursing, and assisted living facilities.