Voyager Sopris Learning EDVIEW360 Podcast Series

Join this interesting and informative presentation led by a true literacy legend, Dr. Linnea Ehri, a renowned researcher and respected leader in the teaching of reading. Dr. Ehri will discuss her theory of orthographic mapping, which involves the formation of letter-sound connections to bond the spellings, pronunciations, and meanings of specific words in memory and explains how children learn to read words by sight, to spell words from memory, and to acquire vocabulary words from print.

You’ll learn from the master herself as she explains how her theory lends itself to effective ways to teach reading. Her presentation is instructive, applicable, and inspiring for all educators who want to better understand reading instruction and improve their students’ outcomes.

Attendees will learn:

• How sight words are learned and the course of acquisition
• What skills to teach to enable sight-word learning
• How to teach grapheme-phoneme relations, phonemic awareness, decoding, and spelling skills
• Ways to improve vocabulary learning
• How readers store the spellings of sight words in memory and the research behind grapheme-phoneme relations
• The skills needed to perform orthographic mapping
• And much more!

We hope you’ll join us as we learn from a true changemaker in literacy instruction.

Join us for an engaging webinar exploring the critical differences between core instruction and intervention within a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework. Core instruction provides universal, evidence-based, grade-level teaching for all students, while intervention targets specific skill gaps for selected learners through intensive, data-driven practices. Discover how these components work together to create a comprehensive system that ensures equity and addresses diverse student needs. We’ll cover five key strategies for distinguishing core from intervention, including determining what students need, pacing, focus, audience, and the use of evidence-based curricula. Don’t miss this opportunity to enhance your understanding and improve student outcomes.
 

Attendees will learn:

• The key differences between core instruction and intervention, including focus, audience, and intensity
• Why more core instruction does not replace the need for intervention
• How core instruction ensures equity through evidence-based, grade-level teaching for all students
• The role of interventions in addressing specific skill gaps using targeted, data-driven strategies
• Practical insights about integrating universal screeners and diagnostic assessments to identify and support student needs
• Strategies for aligning evidence-based curricula to maximize the effectiveness of both core instruction and intervention

What’s the best approach to teach comprehension?
What makes expository text so challenging?

The use of text structure to improve comprehension is a powerful, yet often underutilized approach to help students integrate the big ideas across text. During this presentation—aimed at students who may be struggling in grades 4 and beyond—you’ll learn to connect research with immediate application about teaching various text structures to scaffold students’ ability to incorporate relevant ideas and content within narrative and expository texts.

Defining text structure, the research behind it, and cognitive integration theory—“We learn better if we have a frame or structure to attach that learning to”—helps all students, including those in middle school and beyond, succeed with reading comprehension and fluency.

Join this fascinating and applicable presentation during which our literacy expert shares the research and helpful Knowledge Acquisition and Transformation (KAT) framework that can be a game changer for so many striving readers.

Attendees will:

• Connect the research base about general cognitive learning to text structure specifically
• Understand the significance of teaching text structure in an explicit and consistent manner to improve comprehension
• Receive information and resources to incorporate text structure learning into current classroom practices

Join us for this informative and applicable presentation during which our presenter, renown researcher and literacy expert Dr. Barbara Foorman, will share the facts, research, and strategies surrounding using data to inform classroom instruction and guide intervention. As Dr. Foorman explains the use of data to identify strengths and weaknesses in students as they learn to read, she will share the critical nature of informed approaches that help educators truly change student outcomes.

Attendees will learn:

1. What language and reading constructs predict reading success and how they can be measured reliably.
2. The definitions of certain assessment terms (sensitivity/specificity; positive/negative; predictive/predictive power) and how they relate to diagnostic utility.
3. The most-asked questions educators ask about assessment systems.
4. The challenges of assessment—and possible solutions.
5. How data from formative assessment can inform evidence-based literacy practices to differentiate instruction in the classroom and in intervention.
6. Why intervention is necessary beyond additional core curriculum.

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:

1. How mindful and intentional application of accommodations sets students with dyslexia up for success.
2. Key recommendations for supporting students with dyslexia in the academic setting.
3. A deeper understanding of high- and low-tech accommodations within the classroom.

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!

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

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.

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

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