West Jersey Reading Council Fall Conference

This workshop for high school and college level literacy classrooms will focus one or two strategies for enhancing the level of academic conversations surrounding specific texts. Participants will practice these strategies with authentic text in order to understand how the protocol is to be implemented in the classroom.These protocols allow students to gather their thoughts prior to discussion or writing about their reading.

Appropriate for Secondary/College levels

Add to Calendar

Motivation and engagement are key for all students. Those students who struggle with reading need instruction to be explicit, to follow a sequence of skills, and to be fun! As part of this presentation, attendees will play various games tailored to specific phonics skills. The presentation will include grouping of games specific to cvc words, blends, syllable types, and more. Be ready to have fun and play like the students do! Games are a wonderful way to reinforce phonics skills and to support cooperation and game skills. Easy to implement right into your classroom the next day and with little to no cost!

Appropriate for Elementary Levels

Add to Calendar

Are you standing at the crossroads between “Science of Reading” and Balanced Literacy? Are you wondering if guided reading with leveled texts should now be taboo? Are you questioning whether teaching with decodable readers is the “right” and “only” way to teach primary students? In a research-based and practical approach, let me explain why BOTH techniques deserve a place in your classroom. We will also discuss how you can use decodable readers to support a range of literacy skills in addition to decoding, so you can achieve maximum learning from your time investment. If you have a decodable reader you’ll use in your classroom, bring it with you. If not, I’ve got you covered!

Appropriate for Primary Grades

Add to Calendar

Teachers write many newsletters, blogs, and reports to send to the parents and guardians of their students. In this session, we will examine teacher-written newsletters and reports and consider the ways in which they reflect equity, inclusion, and belonging. We will discuss welcoming language as well as terms which should be avoided. Language is powerful. Welcoming language builds a positive school community.

Appropriate for All Levels

Add to Calendar

Learn and practice harnessing AI to make your instructional planning easier and less time-consuming. Bring a device to use (Chromebook, laptop, or even a phone).

Appropriate for All Levels

Add to Calendar

In this workshop, we will explore effective methods to gauge students' comprehension of written material. Participants will discover three distinct assessment strategies and will learn how to implement them seamlessly into their teaching practice, enabling them to better support and guide their students' learning journey. Whether you're an experienced educator seeking fresh insights or a newcomer aiming to enhance your assessment toolkit, this workshop promises to equip you with valuable techniques that will elevate both your teaching and your students' academic growth. Don't miss this opportunity to enrich your instructional skills and unlock new possibilities in comprehension assessment!

Appropriate for all levels.

Add to Calendar

Working together to create engaging lessons that will allow students to "pair up" and "join classes" to challenge each other on their knowledge of materials.

Appropriate for Middle School

Add to Calendar

Discover how to infuse literacy skills into lessons through use of visual and multi-media arts (music, film, photography, etc). Learn how to motivate and engage students by providing opportunities to learn by doing, make connections to other subject areas and use literacy skills in multiple contexts. Provided are research-based model lessons that are accessible to all students and encourage critical thinking, improve communication skills, and expose students to diverse literacy experiences. This workshop is based on the core belief that art is fundamental; it contributes to personal well-being, and promotes understanding of the world around us thus is integral in teaching meaningful 21st century literacy skills.

Appropriate for Upper Elementary and Middle School Levels.

Add to Calendar

Learn fun strategies and games to build your students' vocabularies with ease!

Appropriate for Elementary and Secondary Levels

Add to Calendar

How does a community respond to heal the impact of a crisis? That's the question anthropologist Victor Turner sought to answer from his field research. He concluded there is not only a process for fixing and healing, but that the process comes from different respected entities. It also involves believing in leadership. The process can apply to individuals, not just a collection of people; there's room to expand who leads the process to an outcome. The model is intuitively used by journalists. It can be discovered in texts by readers; it can lead to writing some fun stories.

Appropriate for All Levels

Add to Calendar

This session will be a follow-up of sorts to my session from last Fall but will not need to have been attended in order to find it useful! The session will focus on how teachers can get to know their students as writers in order to meet their needs and grow their skills. We will discuss how to learn about and get to know their students as writers through: talking to them!, observing writing behaviors and analyzing student work in order to find their "base level" of need as a writer. Attendees will partake in conversation and think-time, and walk away with easy-to-implement strategies for meeting the needs of their writers.

Appropriate for Primary and Elementary Levels

Add to Calendar

In this presentation, Trevor Bryan will share five rule-ish rules and and a few awesome tools to help students comprehend and craft totally gnarly narratives. Trevor's approach to teaching the comprehension and creation of narrative texts is simple, incredibly effective and highly accessible to students and teachers, not to mention fun. Let's help students get their story groove on!

Appropriate for Primary, Elementary, and Middle School Levels

Add to Calendar

As an instructional coach/reading specialist I get a lot of questions about structuring groups within the classroom and how to best drive student achievement. This session will be about Guided Reading, where I will incorporate resources with the goal of communicating how to teach guided reading with goals other than comprehension. 

Appropriate for Primary and Elementary Levels

Add to Calendar

In this presentation, I will share challenges, strategies, and successes in collaborating to best support English Language Learners (ELLs), Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education (SLIFE) and struggling readers in grades K through 8.

Appropriate for Primary, Elementary, and Middle Grades.

Add to Calendar

Classroom teachers often wonder what to do after they've completed a running record for a student. An assessment recently developed by Nell Duke and her colleagues, the Listening to Reading — Watching While Writing Protocol (LTR-WWWP), zeroes in on specific aspects of reading and writing and provides a strong roadmap for your one-on-one or small-group instruction. In this session, participants will look at the goals, administration, and use of this tool, which is an easy-to-use alternative to running records and other informal assessments.

Appropriate for Primary and Elementary Levels.

Add to Calendar

ABOVE and BEYOND is the Growth Mindset which INSPIRES Educators to Provide More than Exposure but Access to Multiple Opportunities for the SUCCESS OF ALL. This can be accomplished as we become ADVOCATES, and move from Awareness, to Acceptance, to Action. When administrators, faculty, staff, families, community & students are ALL EQUIPPED with the necessary Tools to be Effective, we are all EMPOWERED to SUCCEED. AND IT IS THEN, when Students & Teachers have Voice, Visibility & are Valued - that Student Performance will be Enhanced, Student Achievement will be Increased & failure will Never be ... a final option!

Appropriate for all levels.

Add to Calendar