Upcoming!
New Webinars
Casey Harrison, founder of The Dyslexia Classroom and Wimberley Dyslexia and Learning Center, is a certified academic language therapist (ALTA), licensed dyslexia therapist (TX, ALTA), certified Structured Literacy dyslexia specialist (IDA), and a qualified teacher with more than 27 years of experience. She works with parents, teachers, and preK–12 students at her private practice, providing dyslexia therapy, literacy instruction, consultations, resources, and training. She also sits on the National Board of the Academic Language Therapy Association. In addition to her private practice, she has a podcast, Together in Literacy, which focuses on dyslexia, literacy instruction, and the whole child. She is a national presenter and author of Teaching Beyond the Diagnosis—Empowering Students with Dyslexia Through the Science of Reading (release 2025). Harrison’s dedication to advocating for all students, especially those with dyslexia, and highlighting the connection between academics and the social-emotional well-being of students with learning differences is evident in her work. She lives in Texas with her husband, their three daughters, and many animals in their little slice of the country.
Empowering Students with Dyslexia in the Classroom: Making Accommodations Meaningful and Accessible
Released: October 8, 2024
Accommodations act as a bridge to the curriculum for students with dyslexia and other language-based learning differences. Within our classrooms and schools, mindful considerations must be made to ensure accommodations are meaningful supports, accessible to students, and designed with the student in mind to act as a vehicle for learning. During this session, we will dig into how we can introduce and address accommodations within classrooms to remove the stigma or shame that may accompany their use and instead focus on building and preserving self-esteem and developing agency.
Attendees will learn:
- How mindful and intentional application of accommodations sets students with dyslexia up for success.
- Key recommendations for supporting students with dyslexia in the academic setting.
- A deeper understanding of high- and low-tech accommodations within the classroom.
Hannah Irion-Frake is a literacy coach and interventionist and former public-school teacher with more than 16 years of teaching experience in second and third grades. She is a graduate of Bucknell University, Bloomsburg University, and the University of Massachusetts Lowell with master’s degrees in both reading and curriculum and instruction. She is a Local LETRS Facilitator and committed to spreading awareness about the science of reading. She shares actively about how she brought Structured Literacy practices into her own third grade classroom and with her individual students as an interventionist on her Instagram account @readingwithmrsif and on Twitter @readingwithmsif.
Make it Stick: High Impact Routines and Practice in Phonics Instruction
Released: September 10, 2024
When it comes to phonics instruction, our students need to be doing the hard work of learning. Leveraging high-impact routines and opportunities for practice can create a classroom climate that facilitates this hard work. Literacy expert Hannah Irion-Frake will walk you through the why and how of phonics instruction and show you how you can help your students master phonics concepts forever.
Join us for this informative and practical webinar to learn research-based phonics routines that will create consistent practice opportunities for your students.
Attendees will learn:
- High-impact, research-based phonics routines that are low-prep and easy to implement
- How to set up consistent instructional routines for phonics in an elementary classroom
- Key components of a phonics lesson, including direct instruction and student practice
- How to monitor student progress in response to phonics instruction
Previous Webinars
The Phonics Road Map
Released: Tuesday, June 11, 2024
Join us for this fascinating and applicable presentation! Literacy expert and educator Amie Burkholder (@literacyedventures) will share what the research says about phonics instruction and five approaches to teaching it that you can implement it in practical ways within your own classrooms.
Phonics (and phonemic awareness) is the road to fluency and comprehension. Creating explicit and systematic instruction in this area is critical for all students to succeed and become fluent readers and writers.
Participants will walk away with a solid foundation of how to execute an explicit lesson and a tool kit of resources to get them started. All registrants who attend the live webinar will receive a free resource.
We hope you’ll join us!
Susan Ebbers is a literacy expert and author of Power Readers and Supercharged Readers, as well as the rhyming picture books, Jamie’s Journey: The Savannah and Jamie’s Journey: The Mountain. She has consulted across the country and continues to work to promote reading, focusing especially on vocabulary and morphological awareness. She served as a primary grade teacher for more than 10 years before moving on to work with adolescents striving to read. In doctoral studies, she focused on vocabulary development and morphological awareness. To learn more, visit, Vocabulogic at https://vocablog-plc.blogspot.com.
Building Reading Skills in Grades 1 - 4: Strategic Reading Practice
Released: Wednesday, May 8, 2024
When it comes to helping students learn to read even better, it takes a seasoned expert to provide insight and guidance on what really works. Susan Ebbers is that expert: she knows what it takes to help all students—struggling or not—become even better at reading, and this presentation will showcase her proven strategies and approaches.
Ebbers will focus on how to support emerging and advancing readers through various aspects of word structure, including phonetically regular words, irregular words, syllable and morpheme analysis.
Attendees will learn:
- How to achieve a reading progression from simple texts with basic words to more advanced and academic texts containing morphologically complex words with multiple syllables
- The importance of using a blend of narratives, riddles, poems, and informational texts for this age group
- How to use pre- and post-reading activities to boost literacy
- Methods for motivating struggling readers with decodable books designed for success
- And much more!
We hope you’ll join us.
Dr. Jason D. DeHart is a teacher at Wilkes Central High School in North Carolina, and was an assistant professor of reading education at Appalachian State University. DeHart's research interests include multimodal literacy, including film and graphic novels, and literacy instruction with adolescents. He taught middle grades English/Language Arts for eight years and continues to work to keep current with trends in education. DeHart’s work has recently appeared in SIGNAL Journal, English Journal, and The Social Studies, and he has a co-edited the volume, Connecting Theory and Practice in Middle School Literacy, to be released by Routledge later this year. He is passionate about literacy, inclusivity, engaged reading, and authentic writing practices.
(At Least) 10 Ways to Help Striving Adolescent Readers
Released: Wednesday, April 10, 2024
While attention has increased for young readers who are striving, older readers—students in grades 5–12—need special attention to help gain the literacy skills that will serve them after their academic careers. Our expert teacher Jason DeHart has worked for much of his career with middle and high school students who struggle with reading, and he has some time-honored strategies and skills to share with other educators.
Join us for DeHart’s engaging presentation, which will focus on 10 ways to help the older reader who is still working through developmental skills. You’ll learn about new ideas and strategies, all of which are flexible enough to be adapted to meet a variety of student needs, and come from a teacher and researcher whose work has been centered around solving the mystery of how to help older readers further develop literacy.
You’ll leave this presentation with a new understanding of how to help older readers who struggle, specifically:
- How to simultaneously link comprehension and word work
- Key steps in thinking about how to build literacy engagement with readers across languages
- How to minimize background knowledge building and include more reading in instruction
- How to develop lessons around grammar and vocabulary in context so more reading practice can occur
- Ways to build a comfortable learning environment for the resisting reader
- Thoughtful steps to use visuals and graphic organizers not as replacements but enhancement for breaking down words
- Thoughtful ways to use curriculum and resources so teachers are not “reinventing the wheel”
- Information about the value of developing fluency with older readers, including specific strategies for this work and the role of phonics for older readers
- Ways to take what we know about younger readers and adapt this work for the adolescent/older reader
Jean Stockard is a quantitative sociologist and professor emerita at the University of Oregon, where she taught in the Departments of Sociology and Public Policy and Management. She has Bachelor of Arts degrees in mathematics and sociology, a Masters of Arts in sociology, and a Ph.D. in sociology. Her research builds on longstanding interests in education, inequality, and human development and focuses on ways in which social structures and social actions influence the mental, social, and physical well-being of individuals. She was the lead researcher of a meta-analysis of more than 500 studies of Direct Instruction (All Students Can Succeed: A Half Century of Research on the Effectiveness of Direct Instruction, Lexington Books, 2020) and has authored eight other books and more than 100 research articles.
Success for Every Student: The Research Behind Direct Instruction
Released: February 21, 2024
Direct Instruction (DI) is a highly structured method of teaching based on the assumption that all students can learn if given appropriate instruction. Decades of research shows this method of teaching can help change the stagnant levels of U.S. student achievement. Our expert will share these research results and describe DI’s potential to dramatically change patterns of student achievement in the United States
Hundreds of studies show how DI can promote outstanding gains in student achievement and self-confidence. Its positive impact is documented with students from many different backgrounds, in schools with vastly different characteristics, and when compared with all other types of curricula. The gains are both statistically and substantively significant and large enough to dramatically alter current patterns of student achievement. Join noted researcher and educator Dr. Jean Stockard as she describes evidence about DI’s effectiveness, why the programs were and continue to be so successful, why they are not utilized on a large scale in American schools, and most importantly, how they might be used in future years to dramatically reduce school failure and accelerate academic and social success.
If you’re a policymaker, administrator, or teacher, this presentation is for you! Dr. Stockard will share:
- The theory underlying DI, its development, use, and history
- Research from hundreds of different studies regarding DI’s effectiveness looking at students with varying characteristics, in different settings, and studying different areas
- Ways in which the systematic use of DI could alter patterns of student achievement
- What teachers, students, and concerned citizens could do to help bring this about
Dr. Stephanie Stollar is founder of Stephanie Stollar Consulting LLC and the creator of The Reading Science Academy. Dr. Stollar is a part-time assistant professor in the online reading science program at Mount St. Joseph University, and a founding member of a national alliance for supporting reading science in higher education. As a board member for the Innovations in Education Consortium, she collaboratively plans the annual MTSS Innovations in Education Conference. Dr. Stollar has worked as a school psychologist, an educational consultant, and as vice president for professional learning for Acadience® Learning Inc. She has provided professional development, conducted research and published in the areas of assessment, early intervention, and collaborative problem-solving. She is passionate about aligning practice to research and designing school systems to prevent reading failure.
MTSS Myth Busting: The Truth About Tier 1
Released: January 11, 2024
Join us for this enlightening presentation featuring our literacy expert who will do some myth busting about Tier 1 instruction. Learn the truth (and the research behind it) as we explore important facts related to Tier 1.
Do you know if these statements are myths or facts?
- Tier 1 instruction should be done only in a whole group format
- Classroom teachers are the only staff who can deliver Tier 1 instruction
- Students who score at benchmark on screening should receive Tier 1 instruction
- Students should come out of Tier 1 to get their Tier 2 intervention
- Eighty percent of students should reach benchmark goals with Tier 1 instruction only, no intervention
This session will shed light on common myths and provide actionable alternatives to common MTSS implementation mistakes and misunderstandings. By framing Tier 1 instruction as risk reduction, participants will learn how to improve reading outcomes for all students.
Dr. Stephanie Stollar will share:
- Definitions of each tier of instruction in the MTSS model
- Characteristics of effective Tier 1 instruction
- Strategies for aligning Tier 1 instruction to universal screening data
- Alternatives to common myths about Tier 1 instruction
We hope you will join us for this applicable presentation!
Hannah Irion-Frake is a literacy coach and interventionist and former public-school teacher with more than 16 years of teaching experience in second and third grades. She is a graduate of Bucknell University, Bloomsburg University, and the University of Massachusetts Lowell with master’s degrees in both reading and curriculum and instruction. She is a Local LETRS Facilitator and committed to spreading awareness about the science of reading. She shares actively about how she brought Structured Literacy practices into her own third grade classroom and with her individual students as an interventionist on her Instagram account @readingwithmrsif and on Twitter @readingwithmsif.
The Path to Comprehension: The Connection Between Vocabulary and Background Knowledge
Released: November 15, 2023
Background knowledge and vocabulary are essential components of good comprehension instruction. With some knowledge of a topic, students are set for comprehension success.
Join us for this applicable and instructive presentation as third-grade teacher Hannah Irion-Frake shares research-based strategies, activities, and personal experience from her own classroom to illustrate ways to include background knowledge and vocabulary in classroom instruction.
Attendees will learn:
- Research that supports the connection of vocabulary and background knowledge to comprehension
- Classroom strategies and activities to help your students build background knowledge
- Classroom routines and best practices for vocabulary instruction
Dr. Leslie Laud has taught students how to write for nearly 20 years as a classroom teacher. She has researched and developed writing instruction methodology, and now serves as a nationally recognized writing-staff instructor and consultant to hundreds of schools.
Dr. Laud holds a doctorate in curriculum and instruction from Columbia University, where she also taught teacher education courses. She conducts empirical research studies on the most effective ways to teach writing, publishes her findings in peer-reviewed journals, and presents at prestigious conferences such as Learning & the Brain, Society for Scientific Studies of Reading, International Literacy Association (ILA), National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE), and locally at Massachusetts Reading Association (MRA). In addition to authoring Releasing Writers: Evidence-Based Strategies for Developing Self-Regulated Writers (2017), she also published Using Formative Assessment to Differentiate Middle School Literacy Instruction (2012). She is currently conducting an empirical research study about structured ways to teach sentence writing. She is the author of multiple journal articles.
Center Writing in Your Literacy Instruction to Move ALL Students Forward
Released: October 18, 2023
Join us for this enlightening presentation exploring the most recent research about effective writing instruction—and what that means for literacy learning. Presenter Dr. Leslie Laud has led multimillion dollar federal research grants designed to find the lightest lift and highest yield approaches for raising not just writing outcomes but overall ELA proficiency.
Dr. Laud will share how prioritizing writing offers the greatest promise in improving the writing and reading skills of our students who struggle the most. She will explain recent findings while illustrating how educators can give writing additional attention in everyday lessons, drawing examples from districts that saw significant gains after using the approaches she will share.
Dr. Laud will discuss:
- High-impact strategies with the strongest evidence of effectiveness
- Tips for how to strengthen the impact of curricular materials you may already have in place
- Encouraging stories of success
- Ways to align writing instruction horizontally and vertically
- Methods that can be applied immediately
Dr. Lucy Hart Paulson, Ed.D., CCC-SLP, is an author and literacy specialist with a mission of bringing research to practice. She is also a speech-language pathologist with years of experience working with educators and young children and their families in a range of educational settings. In addition, Hart Paulson was an associate professor teaching and conducting research in the areas of language and literacy development and disorders. She provides professional development using a broad-based perspective blending areas of language and literacy together resulting in effective, appropriate, and engaging language-based literacy instruction and intervention for all children. Additionally, she is the co-author of Good Talking Words, a social-communication skills program for young children; LETRS® for Early Childhood Educators, 2nd Edition; and Building Early Literacy and Language Skills, a resource and activity guide for young children.
Key Ingredients of Social-Communication and Executive-Function Skills for Young Learners
Released: September 20, 2023
How we communicate and interact with those around us depends on interconnected skills across the learning domains. Social-communication skills require executive function and oral language, which supports cognitive development and impacts social-emotional skills, and the acquisition of these skills in early childhood is critical.
How are the social interactions of the young students in your care? Early childhood providers have an important opportunity and responsibility to help young children develop these lifelong social-communication skills. This webinar will describe foundational skills needed to interact with those around us and share everyday routines and activities to help facilitate young children’s interaction skills leading to better learning opportunities.
Attendees will learn:
- What the foundational social-communication skills and executive-function skills are and how they impact learning
- Ways to enhance and model social-communication and executive-function skills
- Strategies early childhood providers can use and apply with young learners
We hope you’ll join us!
Natalie Wexler is an education writer and the author of The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America’s Broken Education System—And How to Fix It (Avery 2019). She is also the co-author, with Judith C. Hochman, of The Writing Revolution: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades (Jossey-Bass, 2017), and a senior contributor to the education channel on Forbes.com. Her newsletter, Minding the Gap, on Substack, is available for free. Click here to view past posts and subscribe.
Her articles and essays about education and other topics have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, the MIT Technology Review, The American Scholar, and other publications. She has spoken about education before a variety of groups and appeared on a number of TV and radio shows, including Morning Joe and NPR’s On Point and 1A.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University, a Master of Arts degree in history from the University of Sussex (UK), and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Pennsylvania. She has worked as a reporter, a Supreme Court law clerk, a lawyer, and a legal historian. The author of three novels, she lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and has two adult children.
Top 5 Things You Can Do to Improve Your Literacy Instruction
Released: August 9, 2023
How can you help students improve their ability to understand complex text and their writing skills? Probably not in the ways you’ve been led to believe work best. The standard approach to reading comprehension has students practice skills and strategies like “making inferences” about texts on a random variety of topics. And writing is generally relegated to a separate block, with students writing about topics unrelated to the core curriculum. But evidence indicates what really boosts students’ literacy is to connect reading and writing. Plus, comprehension and writing instruction should be grounded in rich content. And all aspects of literacy need to connect—not just reading and writing, but also listening and speaking.
In this webinar, participants will learn:
- Why it’s important to read aloud to the whole class from a series of complex texts, staying on the same topic for at least two to three weeks—and how to find resources for those “text sets”
- How to ask questions that put content in the foreground rather than skills and strategies
- Why it’s crucial to organize classroom libraries by topic as well as reading level
- Why spending a lot of time on meaty social studies and science topics is the best way to boost reading comprehension
- How students’ comprehension improves when they write about what they’re learning and get explicit instruction in constructing sentences, paragraphs, and essays
Sound Walls in Your Classroom: The Pathway to Reading Fluency
Released: June 6, 2023
How do sound walls support the science of reading? Do you know how to best use a sound wall to get your students reading successfully? How can you improve the sound wall you’re already using?
Find the answers to these questions and more when you join us for this useful presentation. Literacy and sound wall expert Dr. Mary Dahlgren will help you build a thorough understanding of how to use a sound wall, implementation tips, and more—everything you need to know and why. This is one more step in understanding the speech-to-print connection to improve outcomes for increased reading skills.
Dr. Dahlgren, founder of Tools 4 Reading, (the original authority on sound wall resources), will share the research that validates reading is a process that requires knowing the sounds and print, and she will illustrate how a sound wall is a pathway to make sense of how print represents those sounds.
She will also share:
- The need and purpose of having a sound wall in the classroom
- How to introduce and teach all 44 phonemes
- How to integrate a sound wall into your daily phonological awareness and phonics instruction
- How and when to add print to a sound wall
Trevor Muir is a teacher, author, international speaker, and project- based learning expert. He is the author of The Epic Classroom: How to Boost Engagement, Make Learning Memorable, and Transform Lives, a book about using the power of story to make learning engaging and unforgettable. Trevor is a professor at Grand Valley State University, a former faculty member for the Buck Institute for Education and is one of the Andrew Gomez Dream Foundation educators. His writing has been featured in the Huffington Post, EdWeek, and regularly on WeAreTeachers. He gave a TEDx Talk titled, "School Should Take Place in the Real World," at TEDxSanAntonio. Trevor's Facebook page, The Epic Classroom, has inspiring videos that have been viewed over 25 million times. At the heart of Trevor's work is the conviction that every student has the potential for greatness, and every teacher can be equipped to unlock that potential.
Planning Authentic Literacy: Become a Pro at Classroom Engagement
Released: May 3, 2023
For teachers and administrators who contemplate how to make literacy learning more engaging—where the entire classroom is participating and learning with joy—look no further than this inspiring and instructive webinar.
Hosted by Trevor Muir, a teacher and international speaker, this presentation will show you how to tie literacy and a love of reading into authentic and engaging learning experiences. Muir, author of The Epic Classroom and a guest speaker and consultant to schools across the country, will explore strategies and practices to help students grow as readers and critical thinkers while completing purposeful tasks. Muir will share how to plan literacy activities during projects, ways to weave literacy learning into everything you do in the classroom, and strategies for teaching reading and writing in engaging and authentic ways.
Attendees will:
- Discover new strategies to increase a love of reading in their students
- Get new ideas to boost student engagement
- Learn how to choose authentic supportive texts for learning units
We hope you’ll join us!
Pam Kastner, Ed.D., is an educational consultant at the Pennsylvania Training and Technical Assistance Network (PaTTAN) Harrisburg, where she serves as the state lead for literacy in Pennsylvania.
Dr. Kastner along with the PaTTAN Literacy team has led Pennsylvania’s Dyslexia Screening and Early Literacy Intervention Pilot Program, extension and expansion.
Dr. Kastner serves on the Pennsylvania Taskforce for Higher Education. The taskforce's goal is to embed the science of reading and Structured Literacy in higher education institutions. She presented at the National Summit on the Science of Reading in Higher Education in 2022, and is on the steering committee developing a Summit on the Science of Reading in Higher Education in Pennsylvania planned for May 2023.
Dr. Kastner is an adjunct professor at Mount Saint Joseph University in the reading science program, where she teachers in the Masters’ and Doctoral program.
She serves as president of The Reading League Pennsylvania, The Reading League Journal’s Practitioner Editorial Board, and is a member of The Science of Reading: A Defining Movement coalition.
Phonemic Awareness and Letter/Sound Associations: Practices for Teachers
Phonemic awareness is an essential early literacy skill that underpins a child’s ability to read and spell and yet research demonstrates that without direct, explicit instruction in phonemic awareness, this skill eludes many students (Adams, 1990).
Join us for this instructional presentation exploring the research supporting phonological and phonemic awareness and the theoretical frameworks that underpin it.
With an emphasis on how to teach phonemic awareness and letter/sound associations with effective Structured Literacy practices, this webinar will share strategies, resources, tips, and encouragement to literacy educators. Our expert will also share assessments to inform instruction and intervention, as well as comprehensive literacy resources to transfer knowledge to practice.
Participants will be able to:
- Define phonological and phonemic awareness
- Define decoding and encoding
- Transfer knowledge to practice using instructional routines
Register now!
Dr. Stephanie Stollar is founder of Stephanie Stollar Consulting LLC and the creator of The Reading Science Academy. Dr. Stollar is a part-time assistant professor in the online reading science program at Mount St. Joseph University, and a founding member of a national alliance for supporting reading science in higher education. As a board member for the Innovations in Education Consortium, she collaboratively plans the annual MTSS Innovations in Education Conference. Dr. Stollar has worked as a school psychologist, an educational consultant, and as vice president for professional learning for Acadience® Learning Inc. She has provided professional development, conducted research and published in the areas of assessment, early intervention, and collaborative problem-solving. She is passionate about aligning practice to research and designing school systems to prevent reading failure.
Bringing the Science of Reading to Light Using MTSS: One School's Story
Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) offers the framework for implementing the science of reading. Improving reading outcomes for all students requires building leaders who create the right conditions for learning, including designing systems for data-based decision-making, assessment, scheduling, and grouping.
We hope you’ll join this interesting presentation when our experts share how and why reading outcomes improved in a high-needs elementary school through the alignment of instructional systems and student data. There is so much to be learned from this school’s success, and these presenters will walk you through the details.
Attendees will learn:
- About the MTSS framework and implementing the science of reading
- How to use assessment data for systems change and student improvement
- The role of building leaders in creating the systems, structures, and processes for designing MTSS to improve reading outcomes for all students
- The challenges and successes of the school’s principal as she helped transform reading for elementary students
Dr. Anita Archer serves as an educational consultant to state departments and school districts on explicit instruction and literacy. She has presented in all 50 states and many countries including Australia. She is the recipient of 10 awards honoring her contributions to education. Dr. Archer has served on the faculties of three universities including the University of Washington, University of Oregon, and San Diego State University. She has co-authored numerous curriculum materials including Phonics for Reading (Curriculum Associates), a three-level intervention program REWARDS® (Voyager Sopris Learning®), a five-component literacy intervention program; and a best-selling textbook, Explicit Instruction: Effective and Efficient Teaching (Guilford Publications).
The Human Heart Characteristics of Teachers
When we look at the profession of teaching, three bodies of knowledge are necessary:
- Knowledge of the content to be taught
- Knowledge of effective instructional practices
- Knowledge of how students learn
But underlying these essential bodies of knowledge are the characteristics of teachers we must celebrate on this Valentine’s Day. What makes a great teacher? What sets some apart from others? Who lives
on in the memories of their students?
In this webinar, Dr. Anita Archer will explore the characteristics as she reflects on the teachers she has known during the past 56 years of her career. Dr. Archer will share stories of the “greats” and their heart characteristics: passion,
intention, order, tenacity, compassion, and JOY. We’ll also discuss the recent teacher exodus and what teachers need to stay committed to the classroom.
Please join us to celebrate the human hearts of teachers.
Dr. Jason D. DeHart is a teacher at Wilkes Central High School in North Carolina, and was an assistant professor of reading education at Appalachian State University. DeHart's research interests include multimodal literacy, including film and graphic novels, and literacy instruction with adolescents. He taught middle grades English/Language Arts for eight years and continues to work to keep current with trends in education. DeHart’s work has recently appeared in SIGNAL Journal, English Journal, and The Social Studies, and he has a co-edited the volume, Connecting Theory and Practice in Middle School Literacy, to be released by Routledge later this year. He is passionate about literacy, inclusivity, engaged reading, and authentic writing practices.
Transforming Reader Identity: Positive Approaches to Literacy for Older Readers
Older readers often have a fixed sense of what reading means (as seen in the work of researcher and author Dr. Peter Johnston), how often reading occurs in their daily lives, and if they like reading at all. As educators, we sometimes have a lot to work against in terms of family dynamics, negative feelings of self as reader, and the sense that “it’s too late.” Even adults who share their stories of striving in reading sometimes carry a sense of negativity about these emotions and experiences. Our goal is to curb that.
This insightful presentation will help teachers and administrators understand it’s never too late, and there are applicable strategies that can address reframing, motivation, and helping all readers see themselves as more than their challenges. Research proves that early intervention is key, and there are concrete ways to help middle and high school students make gains and improve literacy and confidence.
In this presentation, our expert will share:
- How to develop a framework for success
- Ways to take what is known and tackle what is unknown
- New ways to frame literacy
- Why educators must consider both assets and needs students bring with spoken language, social and cultural awareness, writing and composing, and real-life uses for the content we teach
- Why specific, systematic instruction is needed, going from part to whole
- How instructors can refresh skills for older readers as needed and pay attention to the areas of most significant and critical need by taking what students are already familiar with and adding to it (especially important for working with English Learners)
Dr. John Woodward is a nationally recognized mathematics author, writer, and speaker. He is the past dean of the school of education and professor emeritus at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA.
As a researcher, he focused on mathematics interventions for academically low-achieving students, particularly in elementary and middle grades. Dr. Woodward has published more than 80 articles and presented on mathematics education issues throughout the U.S., as well as in Canada, Asia, and Europe. He is the senior author of TransMath, a math intervention program for middle school students. He also is the co-developer of NUMBERS, a math professional development program for K–8 teachers.
Math Standards, Research, and the Making of a Curriculum: Evidence-Based Practices from the IES Guide
It has always been a game of catch up. New math standards often appear before there’s enough research to support them. Fortunately, we are a decade out from the last major changes to standards at the state and national levels. Research is catching up, particularly at the elementary and middle school levels.
This presentation will describe findings from a recent federal research synthesis that gives specific guidance for students who struggle in the elementary grades. These findings also have implications for middle school students. Finally, the presentation will provide examples of how standards and research have been embedded in a middle school intervention curriculum.
Participants will learn:
- Why there is an understandable gap between standards and supporting research
- Key recommendations supported by high-quality research for math interventions and elementary and middle school
- What these recommendations look like in an intervention curriculum
We hope you’ll join us!
Jan Hasbrouck, Ph.D., is a leading researcher, educational consultant, and author who works with schools in the U.S. and internationally. Dr. Hasbrouck worked as a reading specialist and coach for 15 years and later became a professor. She is the author and coauthor of several books, and her research in reading fluency, academic assessment and interventions, and instructional coaching has been widely published. She continues to collaborate with researchers on projects related to assessment and intervention. When schools are open, she enjoys volunteering at her grandson’s K–8 school in Seattle.
Reading Fluency: The Key for Comprehension
We all know that fluent reading is an important goal for our students to achieve but how do we develop fluency and how do we help those who struggle?
Join us for this informative session with respected author and researcher Dr. Jan Hasbrouck, who will share an updated and functional definition of reading fluency. The presentation will also include research-supported fluency instruction strategies that you can apply to your own classroom teaching, the updated compiled ORF norms (Hasbrouck & Tindal, 1992; 2006; 2017) will be shared.
You’ll enjoy Hasbrouck’s motivating style as she provides an opportunity for attendees to reflect on how fluency supports reading comprehension and how it should fit into a comprehensive and effective reading program for all students.
Attendees will:
- Learn the most accurate definition of the complex skill of reading fluency
- Gain an understanding of the current research
- Receive practical guidance for assessing and developing students’ fluency
- Learn new, specific skill-development activities
Hannah Irion-Frake is a literacy coach and interventionist and former public-school teacher with more than 16 years of teaching experience in second and third grades. She is a graduate of Bucknell University, Bloomsburg University, and the University of Massachusetts Lowell with master’s degrees in both reading and curriculum and instruction. She is a Local LETRS Facilitator and committed to spreading awareness about the science of reading. She shares actively about how she brought Structured Literacy practices into her own third grade classroom and with her individual students as an interventionist on her Instagram account @readingwithmrsif and on Twitter @readingwithmsif.
Building a Reading-Writing Connection in the Classroom
Interested in improving your literacy teaching and discovering creative new ways to get students excited about writing? Join teacher and science of reading advocate Hannah Irion-Frake for this applicable webinar! Our presenter will explore the reading-writing
connection and will share ways you can appropriately increase the amount of writing students do in your classroom. The presentation will span the strands of Scarborough’s Reading Rope and will include strategies for writing related to both word
recognition and language comprehension.
We hope you’ll join us as Irion-Frake illustrates how writing can strengthen reading instruction. You’ll learn:
- How opportunities for writing can strengthen students’ reading development
- Classroom-friendly strategies to increase opportunities for students to write
- Science of reading best practices for classroom implementation
Accurate Math Assessment: Informing Systemwide Support
As schools across the country implement a Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) framework, an integration of data and instruction is necessary to support all students and ensure success. Specific to math, a schoolwide or districtwide system should include
various components, such as different types of assessment for different purposes, multiple levels or tiers of support, and available resources. Accurate assessment data is necessary to examine the effectiveness of instruction at each tier of support.
This informative presentation will describe how to utilize math assessment data within a data-based, decision-making framework to evaluate instruction from a systems-level perspective.
Attendees will learn:
- Why it’s important to conduct systems-level problem solving
- How assessment fits into the MTSS framework
- Ways to use math screening data to evaluate their system of support in math
We hope you’ll join us!
Dr. Ruth Kaminski, is co-author of Acadience® Reading (previously published as DIBELS Next®) and the co-founder of Acadience Learning. Dr. Kaminski is also the lead author of the early childhood literacy assessment, Acadience®Reading Pre-K: PELI®. Dr. Kaminski’s academic background includes degrees in speech pathology, early childhood special education, and school psychology. She has conducted research on assessment and preventative interventions for preschool and early elementary age children for the past 30 years. Dr. Kaminski has extensive experience consulting with Head Start agencies and public schools throughout the United States and abroad. In addition, Dr. Kaminski brings more than a decade of experience as a classroom teacher and speech/language clinician with preschool-age children.
The Power of Prevention: The Critical Need for Assessment
Reading failure can be prevented in almost every learner.
In this webinar, Dr. Ruth Kaminski, co-author of Acadience Reading K-6 (formerly known as DIBELS) will discuss what we know about the prevention of reading failure. She will share practical advice about methods to prevent reading failure, all of which
are grounded in the science of reading, with an emphasis on the role of assessment.
As a result of participation in this webinar, attendees will:
- Become familiar with a prevention-oriented model of reading disability
- Learn practical strategies for preventing reading disabilities
- Understand the critical role of assessment in the prevention of reading disabilities.
Marilyn Sprick is the lead author of Voyager Sopris Learning’s Read Well®K–2 reading series, Read Well® Spelling 1–2, and Read Well® Composition 1. She has also coauthored SMART Kids with Susan Fister, a social skills program for young children. Sprick is also the lead author of The Third Quest Reading Intervention (grades 5–12) and the Parallel Universe (grades 4–8). As a nationally known reading specialist and literacy consultant, she provides inspiring and pragmatic presentations and training.
Integrate Literacy, Behavior, and Social Emotional Learning: Strategies for Educators
When working with fragile readers, we are working with fragile young people. Learn what you can do to combine scientifically based literacy strategies, research-based behavioral strategies, and social emotional learning to lift a child’s spirit,
give them an environment in which they feel safe to learn, and enhance learning, achievement, and future opportunities. Plan now for the 2022-2023 school year, your reading-intervention strategy, and what you can do to help students "catch up," feel
confident, and hold their heads high.
During this webinar, you’ll learn how to:
- Support self-awareness and build relationship skills
- Teach behavioral skills for literacy building and employability
- Improve reading skills and enjoy the ensuing confidence
Reading Intervention in Middle School: Critical Steps for Success
The evidence is compelling – early identification and intervention is key to providing the greatest opportunity to “close the gap” among struggling and successful readers. However, the stark reality is that many older students are reading below levels which enable them to comprehend grade level, and content-area texts.
Although an approach to intervention for older students may require some modifications, the components of explicit instruction, structured literacy, and ample opportunities to practice to fluency remain the cornerstone of good instruction. Join Dr. Julie Klingerman as she explores these facets of intervention unique to older students:
- How do the components of a structured literacy approach apply to older, struggling students?
- How can intervention be accelerated in both word recognition and language comprehension to prepare students for the rigors of content-area reading?
- Which kinds of practice are most motivating to students in grades 4 and up?
Dr. Anita Archer serves as an educational consultant to state departments and school districts on explicit instruction and literacy. She has presented in all 50 states and many countries including Australia. She is the recipient of 10 awards honoring her contributions to education. Dr. Archer has served on the faculties of three universities including the University of Washington, University of Oregon, and San Diego State University. She has co-authored numerous curriculum materials including Phonics for Reading (Curriculum Associates), a three-level intervention program REWARDS® (Voyager Sopris Learning®), a five-component literacy intervention program; and a best-selling textbook, Explicit Instruction: Effective and Efficient Teaching (Guilford Publications).
Learning is NOT a Spectator Sport:
Increasing Student Engagement
Would you like your students to be more motivated, more engaged, more on-task, and learn more in your lessons? If so, the answer lies in increasing the opportunities to respond.
In this webinar, Dr. Archer, a respected authority on literacy teaching and learning, will share the research on opportunities to respond and practical procedures for implementing verbal, written, and action responses in all lessons. You’ll learn useful strategies and inspiring tips to help you better engage your students, and therefore they’ll learn more from your teaching.
Join us for this useful webinar with the always motivating Dr. Archer, and you’ll leave with practices you can immediately apply in your classroom.
Dr. Leslie Laud has taught students how to write for nearly 20 years as a classroom teacher. She has researched and developed writing instruction methodology, and now serves as a nationally recognized writing-staff instructor and consultant to hundreds of schools.
Dr. Laud holds a doctorate in curriculum and instruction from Columbia University, where she also taught teacher education courses. She conducts empirical research studies on the most effective ways to teach writing, publishes her findings in peer-reviewed journals, and presents at prestigious conferences such as Learning & the Brain, Society for Scientific Studies of Reading, International Literacy Association (ILA), National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE), and locally at Massachusetts Reading Association (MRA). In addition to authoring Releasing Writers: Evidence-Based Strategies for Developing Self-Regulated Writers (2017), she also published Using Formative Assessment to Differentiate Middle School Literacy Instruction (2012). She is currently conducting an empirical research study about structured ways to teach sentence writing. She is the author of multiple journal articles.
The Science of Writing: Accelerate Overall Literacy Development via Writing
Join this fascinating, useful presentation as Dr. Leslie Laud shares the most powerful evidence-based practices for raising literacy outcomes—while emphasizing the role writing can play. As Dr. Laud calls on an abundance of current research, much of it just out in 2020-2021, she will help you understand its impact and how the research sheds new light on what works in explicit, Structured Literacy instruction. This webinar will present the latest evidence-based practices so you can best help your students get caught up following the gaps in instruction they may have experienced during the past year.
Kelly A. Powell-Smith, Ph.D., NCSP, Professor of Reading Science at Mount St. Joseph University. Dr. Powell-Smith is the former Chief Science Officer at Acadience Learning. Dr. Powell-Smith is the lead author on Acadience RAN, Acadience Reading Survey, Acadience Reading Diagnostic assessments, and Acadience Spelling. She obtained her doctorate in school psychology from the University of Oregon. She has served as an Associate Professor of School Psychology at the University of South Florida, faculty associate of the Florida Center for Reading Research, and consultant with the Eastern Regional Reading First Technical Assistance Center. She currently serves on several editorial boards including School Psychology Review, School Psychology Forum, and Single-Case in the Social Sciences. Her work has been cited in more than 200 professional journals. Dr. Powell-Smith has provided training in assessment and intervention in 23 states and Canada and conducted 285 national, state, and regional workshops and presentations.
Your Literacy Assessment Toolbox: Effectively and Efficiently Informing Schoolwide Multi-Tiered Systems of Support
Join education and assessment expert Dr. Kelly Powell-Smith of Acadience Learning as she examines the critical issues educators face when making assessment decisions. Which assessments are necessary to support schoolwide Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) in the area of literacy, and when should they be used?
During his respected career, Dr. Antonio Fierro has been able to apply his many years in the classroom and as a literacy expert to help schools and districts teach reading to every student, regardless of previous experience or native language. His vast experience contributes invaluable insight into their products and services. Dr. Fierro is a former Texas State Teacher of the Year and was a member of the LETRS cohort of literacy consultants led by Dr. Louisa Moats for almost 20 years.
Dr. Fierro has contributed to several literacy curricula for English learners along with Tools 4 Reading President Dr. Mary Dahlgren. He is the co-author of Kid Lips, their curriculum that teaches the articulatory features of English phonemes to young children with additional support for English learners. His areas of interest include early literacy instruction, improving the learning experience of pre-service teaching candidates, and the research and practice that impacts English learners. Dr. Fierro is also dedicated to advancing the knowledge base and understanding of dyslexia and other reading disabilities as his son, Antonio Jr., has dyslexia. Dr. Fierro currently sits on the board of The Reading League and is the Vice President of Academics and Professional Learning with 95 Percent Group.
Reading Intervention for Middle School English Learners: Changing the Trajectory
For our middle school English Learners, special considerations must be made based on the stages of language acquisition, literacy levels in their native language, and support needed to learn to read and write in English. As an educator, are you doing everything possible to change the trajectory of literacy challenges into success?