Dr. Ruby K. Payne, Ph.D.

Bridges Out of Poverty

A Framework for Understanding Poverty
Training and Workshop

Most Requested Programs:

A Framework for Understanding Poverty

Designed to help you connect to your students

How does poverty impact learning, work habits, or decision making? The reality of living in poverty brings out a survival mentality and turns attention away from opportunities taken for granted by people in middle and upper class. If you work with people in poverty, a better understanding of how different their world is from yours will be invaluable.

Most teachers today come from middle-class backgrounds. In an educational setting, economic class differences create conflict and challenges for both teachers and students alike. Designed for educators at all levels, but helpful to counselors, administrators, and support staff as well, this seminar provides practical, real-world support and guidance for overcoming barriers and helping others succeed. Designed for elementary and secondary schools of any size.

What audiences learn:

• Impact of economic class differences on communication, interactions, and expectations
• Symptoms of generational poverty and how they differ from situational poverty
• Poverty-related behaviors and mindsets that affect learning
• Identification of the resources and strengths of any student
• Tips, tools, and intervention strategies proven to increase your effectiveness
• "Hidden rules" or social cues that differ greatly between the classes

Research-Based Strategies (Day Two)

Research-Based Strategies provides educators with hands-on techniques that help them narrow and then eliminate the achievement gap for all students, but especially under-resourced students. Reduce your planning and response time and improve your effectiveness. Develop more immediate, reliable intervention strategies. Address students' challenges before they become overwhelming. We have merged many of the concepts from our titles Understanding Learning and Learning Structures into this totally updated program.

This seminar provides strategies that can be readily implemented and integrated into any curriculum or program and will raise student achievement. In this redesign, you will find:

• 50+ strategies, their explanations, and relevant research
• A chart of observed student behaviors
• Extensive bibliographic references
• A "menu" of strategies that can be used to meet the needs of today’s under-resourced learners
• New strategies categorized by academic, behavior, or community-based concern or challenge

Meeting AYP and Raising Test Scores When You Don't Have Much Time or Money

Meeting AYP is designed to use existing teacher expertise to raise student achievement. The processes are simple, easy to implement and get results fast! Implementation directions and sample materials are provided in this workshop that may be reproduced without cost or copyright violation. It is recommended that participants attend as a grade level, department or campus vertical team, along with a campus administrator, but not required.

Tucker Signing Strategies for Reading

This training workshop provides participants with a powerful supplemental strategy for decoding that can be used in conjunction with any conventional reading program. It uses a system of 44 hand signs that prompt associations between letters or word chunks and the sounds they represent. This is a strategy that children enjoy, and appeals to reluctant readers, boys, excessively active children, and those with learning disabilities as well as the average reader. Readers see the letter, sign the sound and say the sound at the same time: this multi-sensory combination provides success to readers who have not succeeded before. Tucker Signs provide the mental model that children of poverty need in order to succeed in reading, while giving the observer insight into what is going on in the reader's mind. This strategy moves the responsibility of decoding unfamiliar words from the teacher to the child. It can be used with students of any age who read between kindergarten and fourth-grade level.

Math Strategies/Problem Solving for the Elementary Classroom.

This presentation focuses on a variety of mental models for elementary math. Participants learn that when mental models are taught directly to the students they are able to learn and retain concepts much more quickly. A problem solving process will be presented which requires the students to plan, label and sort information. This process is used as a method to control students’ impulsivity and therefore increase their success in math. This method of teaching problem solving has been especially effective with students who are struggling in understanding basic math skills. The workshop is designed for math teachers of elementary school students, with audiences of Grades K-2 or 3-5.

Preventing School Violence by Creating Emotional Safety

Strategies for establishing relationships of mutual respect among teachers, students, and parents, concentrating on the prevention of violence in schools.

Please note: Dr. Payne has limited availability, however she has trained a number of excellent speakers across the nation who can deliver the same program and training. She encourages those with limited budgets to inquire about her associates.

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