Featured Presentations
Known for her contagious energy and extensive knowledge, Diana brings her presentations to life and engages a wide variety of audiences including parents, teachers, educational therapists, and more. All presentations can be adapted for 45 minutes, 90 minutes, half-day, or full-day workshops. Sessions can also be tailored for parents, teachers, educational therapists, or mixed audiences. Interested in a topic not quite captured by one single presentation? Diana can work with you to adapt the content to meet your specific professional development, training or webinar needs.
Writing: From Encoding to Empowerment (all day workshop)
Join Diana to explore the big picture of writing instruction, from spelling words to writing to change the world and a framework for integrating the two.
Adventures in Neurodiversity: Framing, remediating and responding to learning disabilities
In this presentation, Diana presents a framework and teaching approach informed by neurodiversity. Teachers will be able to assess their practices and adjust them to help all students achieve their potential.
What’s math got to do with it?
Learn the symptoms and causes of Math Learning Disabilities and their relationships with dyslexia and ADHD, what those difficulties look like, and the best way to address them.
Looking for Patterns in the Data
Discover guiding principles, important lenses and meaningful patterns to help you go from lots of information to powerful interpretations that can inform your intervention.
Crying kids can’t learn to spell: How to attend to the socio-emotional needs of your students and still teach everything else
Explore the science of stress and of attachment teaching and will provide a framework and practical lessons to integrate socio-emotional attunement with academic goals.
Presentations by Topic
Structured Literacy
Structured Literacy: Beyond the Buzz
Learn the ins and outs of Structured Literacy so that you can be a savvy consumer and an effective educator and meet the needs of all your students.
The Neurobiology of Literacy Learning and the Big Five of Effective Instruction
Explore what is going on under the hood when students learn to master reading and writing and discover the components of effective instruction that will get them there.
Phonemes, Graphemes and Morphemes, Oh My!
Go beyond the basic definitions of the components of our language to learn the hows and whys of all the important terminology to become a more effective educator.
Reading and Writing Sentences
Take your students beyond punctuation and grammar to a deeper understanding of how language works.
The Who, What, When and Why of Reading Instruction
Join Diana to learn to more accurately assess your students, no matter their diagnosis and to craft an intervention specific to their individual needs.
Strategies to get reluctant writers writing (and comprehending better, too!)
In this presentation, Diana will explore different profiles of reluctant readers and offer hands-on, easy-to-implement, fun ways to get those reluctant writers writing.
Writing: From Encoding to Empowerment (all day workshop)
Join Diana to explore the big picture of writing instruction, from spelling words to writing to change the world and a framework for integrating the two.
Speech to Print: Supercharging Structured Literacy
Learn about Speech-to-Print, why it is so effective, and how it fits into your current OG and Structured Literacy practice.
Words, Sentences, Paragraphs and Texts: Teaching students every level of writing
Explore each level of writing from spelling through writing full essays and narratives and discover how they fit together into an integrated whole to deepen your understanding and enhance your teaching.
Math
What’s Math Got to Do with It?: Math learning disabilities, dyslexia and ADHD
Join Board certified educational therapist Diana Kennedy to learn the symptoms and causes of Math Learning Disabilities and their relationships with dyslexia and ADHD, what those difficulties look like, and the best way to address them.
Integrate, increment, scaffold and be explicit: Four pillars of math instruction for all our kids
Join Board-Certified Diana Black Kennedy to explore dyscalculia and learn a solid framework for teaching math, as well as specific games for addressing a wide range of math-related weaknesses.
Using Math Games to Develop Number Sense, Combat Anxiety & Differentiate Instruction
Join BCET Diana Black Kennedy to learn how and why games are key to teaching math, and most importantly, to learn a whole bunch of them!
Learning Disabilities and Neurodivergences
Adventures in neurodiversity: framing, remediating and responding to learning disabilities
In this presentation, Diana presents a framework and teaching approach informed by neurodiversity. Teachers will be able to assess their practices and adjust them to help all students achieve their potential.
Play-full approaches to ADHD
BCET Diana Black Kennedy and MFT Holly Seerely will share techniques to integrate play into the academic, social and emotional work our students must do to learn, grow and heal.
Domain General Pathways to Poor Reading Comprehension and Writing Comprehensibility
Join board certified educational therapist Diana Kennedy to explore the effects of working memory, processing speed, statistical learning and executive functioning on literacy learning, best-practices in remediation and implications for assessment.
Understanding and Supporting All Students (all day workshop)
Join Board Certified Educational Therapist Diana Black Kennedy to do a deep dive into the big five: dyslexia and SLI, ADHD, Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia and Autism.
Don’t Forget the Academics: Autism, Oral Language, Reading and Writing
Join Board Certified Educational Therapist Diana Black Kennedy to explore the current understanding of this neurodivergence and best practices in helping these students succeed in reading and writing across the grade levels.
Multiple Pathways to Poor Reading Comprehension and Writing Comprehensibility
Join board certified educational therapist Diana Kennedy to explore the neurobiology of literacy acquisition, the unique obstacles different learners face, and the newest understanding of best-practices in remediation for each.
Social Justice
The Empathy Solution
The presentation draws from recent insights in neuroscience, attachment, and neuroplasticity to offer educators a roadmap for transforming school discipline—an approach that improves learning and leads to equity and justice.
How Privilege, Power, and Bias Impact Education
Join board certified educational therapist Diana Kennedy to explore the concrete steps we can take to best support all our diverse students through a social justice and equity lens.
Social-Emotional Learning
Crying kids can’t learn to spell: how to attend to the socio-emotional needs of your students and still teach everything else
This presentation explores the science of stress and of attachment teaching and will provide a framework and practical lessons to integrate socio-emotional attunement with academic goals.
The Power Of Personal Narratives
Join board certified educational therapist Diana Kennedy to explore the many facets and ways to harness the Power of Personal Narrative from emotional regulation to personal growth and development.
Gamefication for the Win! Incorporating Games into your educational practice
Join a board-certified educational therapist to discover how and why to incorporate games into your teaching practice without compromising rigor.
Assessment
Always Be Assessing: Bridging the Gap between Assessment and Instruction
Join Board Certified Educational Therapist Diana Black Kennedy to discover how and why to harness the power of informal, formative assessments to create the most effective individualized educational plan for your students.
Looking for Patterns in the Data
Discover guiding principles, important lenses and meaningful patterns to help you go from lots of information to powerful interpretations that can inform your intervention.
Other
Can I Work with This Kid?
Through a look at two case studies—one student with Autism and one with Down Syndrome, Board Certified Educational Therapist Diana Black Kennedy will explore a framework to help think through whether you should take on a student with complex support needs, to find the support needed to ethically work outside your comfort zone, and to prioritize and address more multi-faceted, extensive needs.
Homework Help That Really Helps
In parent-friendly terms, Diana explores what homework help really helps and what may be hurting a child.