Voyager Sopris Learning EDVIEW360 Podcast Series

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?

1. Tier 1 instruction should be done only in a whole group format
2. Classroom teachers are the only staff who can deliver Tier 1 instruction
3. Students who score at benchmark on screening should receive Tier 1 instruction
4. Students should come out of Tier 1 to get their Tier 2 intervention
5. 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:

1. Definitions of each tier of instruction in the MTSS model
2. Characteristics of effective Tier 1 instruction
3. Strategies for aligning Tier 1 instruction to universal screening data
4. Alternatives to common myths about Tier 1 instruction

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

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:

1. High-impact strategies with the strongest evidence of effectiveness
2. Tips for how to strengthen the impact of curricular materials you may already have in place
3. Encouraging stories of success
4. Ways to align writing instruction horizontally and vertically
5. Methods that can be applied immediately

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: 

1. What the foundational social-communication skills and executive-function skills are and how they impact learning
2. Ways to enhance and model social-communication and executive-function skills
3. Strategies early childhood providers can use and apply with young learners

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

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

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
   

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

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:

1. About the MTSS framework and implementing the science of reading
2. How to use assessment data for systems change and student improvement
3. The role of building leaders in creating the systems, structures, and processes for designing MTSS to improve reading outcomes for all students
4. The challenges and successes of the school’s principal as she helped transform reading for elementary students 

When we look at the profession of teaching, three bodies of knowledge are necessary: 

1. Knowledge of the content to be taught
2. Knowledge of effective instructional practices
3. 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.