People still haven’t stopped talking about last year’s Teaching Edge Speaker series debut. Literacy superstars return to the IRA Annual Convention this year to create the Teaching Edge magic all over again. Some faces are new, others familiar, but all promise to dazzle attendees at the world’s premier literacy event.
In case you haven’t heard, IRA’s Teaching Edge speaker series provides annual convention attendees an intense, practical, and energizing experience, putting them face-to-face with the innovators, the movers and shakers, the most in-demand voices in the literacy field. Teaching Edge speakers are working at the forefront of their craft and excited to share their knowledge and experience. After a Teaching Edge session, attendees leave with the kind of powerful, immediately usable knowledge they can take directly back to their classrooms.
Who are these exciting literacy professionals? Returning to Teaching Edge for the 2012 IRA Annual Convention in Chicago are names you've no doubt heard before. Regie Routman discusses purposeful teaching strategies to reduce the number of struggling students and connects her work to current research, the Common Core State Standards, and RTI. The lively Lori Oczkus returns with her amazing stories from the field and a rich array of research based, yet fun and motivating, ideas. Appearing again are Gail Boushey and Joan Moser, known the world over as The 2 Sisters, who have created not one, but two classroom revolutions with The Daily Five and the CAFE systems. And this year we welcome Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell, publishers of numerous programs and books on everything from phonics to guided reading as well as the innovative Leveled Books List.
We’ve added some new names to the 2012 Teaching Edge Speaker series, too. You don’t want to miss Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey, the innovative, multi award-winning educator-authors of books on literacy education; author and high school teacher Kelly Gallagher, who travels widely speaking and teaching workshops; author-educator Alfred Tatum, who has broken barriers with his publications on teaching literacy to African American adolescents; and author-educator Ernest Morrell, who works with urban teens using popular culture to enhance literacy education. It’s quite a line-up!
Attending the Teaching Edge Speaker Series is more than professional development; it’s a chance to take yourself to the cutting edge of contemporary theory and practice of literacy education and share, up close, the knowledge this group of vibrant professionals has amassed. Ready to give your knowledge a boost? Ready to bring something new into your classroom — and watch your students blossom? Then you’re ready for the Teaching Edge.
Teaching Edge Schedule
Monday, April 30
10:30 a.m. Regie Routman
2:00 p.m. Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell
Tuesday, May 1
10:30 a.m. Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey
1:00 p.m. Kelly Gallagher
2:30 p.m. Alfred Tatum
Wednesday, May 2
9:00 a.m. Ernest Morrell
11:00 a.m. Lori Oczkus
1:00 p.m. The 2 Sisters (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser)
The IRA 57th Annual Convention will be held in Chicago from April 29 to May 2, 2012. Visit
www.iraconvention.org for more information.
This article is reprinted from the April/May 2012 issue of Reading Today, the International Reading Association's bimonthly member magazine. Members: click here to read the issue. Nonmembers: join now!