Voyager Sopris Learning EDVIEW360 Podcast Series
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)
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
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 failure
- Learn practical strategies for preventing reading failure
- Understand the critical role of assessment in the prevention of reading difficulties.

When Accurate Assessment Leads to Excellent Instruction: Aligning Curriculum with the Science of Reading Using Acadience Reading K–6 and Voyager Passport
Released: Monday, June 27, 2022
Universal screening is an essential element of schoolwide literacy models for implementing the science of reading and aligning it to curriculum. Screening with Acadience® Reading K–6 efficiently indicates skill level on the essential early literacy skills—phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, and reading comprehension. Giving the assessment is only the first step. Educators need to know how to interpret the data and link assessment to curriculum and instruction that improve reading performance.
In this useful session, participants will see examples of the common patterns of risk captured by Acadience Reading K–6 as displayed in the Acadience® Learning Online platform. Our presenters will share how the assessment results can lead to targeted lessons within the Voyager Passport® program. Examples of specific lessons will illustrate the instruction needed by students with each risk pattern.
Attendees will learn:
- The features of Acadience Reading K–6 as a universal screening assessment that indicates the five essential components of reading
- Which skills to target for science of reading-based instruction as displayed in the Acadience Learning Online platform
- The common patterns of data for students who are at risk of reading failure
- Targeted lessons within Voyager Passport that meet the needs of at-risk students
- How to pair assessment results with specific lessons and activities within Voyager Passport
Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Grades 4–9: What the IES Guide and Research Tell Us
Released: Thursday, May 26, 2022
If you have intermediate and secondary students who are still not reading accurately and fluently with good comprehension, this useful presentation is a hands-on learning experience just for you.
Join us for this thorough webinar when Dr. Anita Archer will review the major recommendations of the Educator’s Practice Guide recently released by the Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.
The guide’s recommendations include:
- Building students’ decoding skills so they can read complex multisyllabic words
- Providing purposeful fluency-building activities
- Utilizing several research-validated comprehension practices
Join us as Dr. Archer discusses the recommendations and helps you gain insight into the research about reading intervention for older struggling readers.
Learning is NOT a Spectator Sport: Increasing Student Engagement
Released: Thursday, April 07, 2022
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.
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.
Attendees will learn:
- The latest advances in the science of writing
- The five keys of the science of writing
- The most promising practices you can use tomorrow
- About resources that can help you continue to grow as a writing teacher
- The overlap between reading and writing, and why writing can lift overall literacy outcomes
Outcomes-Driven Formative Assessment in Middle School: A Fireside Chat
Released: Wednesday, February 24, 2021
Join us for this enlightening conversation as our Acadience® Learning experts discuss how to implement formative assessment of content-area reading in the middle school environment and why that is important. Lessons learned from successful implementation of Acadience® Reading assessments in K–6 will be shared. We will discuss how and why implementation of formative assessment may differ for middle school. A framework for decision making, called the Outcomes-Driven Model, also will be shared and its use in middle school will be illustrated.
Attendees will learn:
- Useful information about formative assessments of content-area reading skills for use in grades 7 and 8
- How the use of these formative assessments within a decision-making framework focused on improving outcomes
- The benefits of this approach and the structure of these assessments
- Why it is imperative to focus on students in middle school
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