Dr. Tracy White-Weeden | Culturally Relevant Literacy – The Human Right of the 21st Century In a knowledge economy, the human right of the 21st Century is literacy. Is it culturally responsive to teach the structure of the English Language explicitly to students from historically marginalized groups? What is a balanced and honorable approach as educators serve what will be an increasingly diverse student demographic? What are the considerations for acknowledging the dialect and language of origin in the process of scaling evidence-based practices responsibly?
Christopher Such | What Every Teacher Needs To Know About Reading An astonishing wealth of relevant research exists on the subject of reading development. This is both a blessing and a curse. Navigating the evidence and deciding what concepts our colleagues need to grasp can be an overwhelming challenge for teachers and school leaders. This talk is designed for anyone who wants to overcome this challenge and to better help all pupils become confident, expert readers.
Implementation of Early Screening & Structured Literacy: A Systems Approach Over the last several years, French Immersion and English schools in the Louis Riel School Division, located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, have been learning and systematically implementing evidence-based practices that closely align with the OHRC recommendations. In this workshop, Ron Cadez (Director of School and Classroom Supports) and Robert George (Psychologist) will describe how their literacy learning journey went from implementation in a single French Immersion school to a district-wide shift in literacy screening and instruction with the support and guidance of prominent North American researchers in the science of reading. Elements discussed will include: implementation and selection of research-based screening tools in the early years, developing a structured literacy co-teaching model for instruction and early intervention, staff development, establishing integrated and timely clinical consultation, assistive technology implementation, as well as system wide data collection and reporting for decision making purposes.
Beyond Phonics: Reading Science in the Elementary Classroom Explicit, systematic and sequential phonics and phonemic awareness instruction is critical to support accurate and automatic word reading, but it is far from the only component of reading instruction. Though structured literacy encompasses many comprehensive aspects of language and literacy instruction, it is often characterized as an approach that is solely focused on decoding and word recognition. In this session, Nellie Caruso, Leigh Fettes and Kate Winn will highlight key instructional routines in their classroom structured literacy instruction that stretch beyond word recognition, using interactive demonstrations to support participants’ knowledge and implementation.
