Literacy Now

Register soon for the International Reading Association 59th Annual Conference to experience professional learning at its best. IRA 2014 offers a multitalented expert lineup of speakers, researchers and authors, that are sure to engage attendees and transform lives.

Richard Allington

An annual favorite speaker, Allington has obtained recognition for his contributions to understanding reading and learning disabilities. He is a professor at the University of Tennessee and a past president of the International Reading Association and the Literacy Research Association. He currently serves on the editorial boards of Reading Research Quarterly, the Journal of Educational Psychology, Remedial and Special Education, and the Elementary School Journal. Allington has received the IRA William S. Gray Citation of Merit for his contributions and has been named to the Reading Hall of Fame. He also wrote and edited many books, including Summer Reading: Closing the Rich/Poor Reading Achievement Gap co-edited by Anne McGill-Franzen.

Gail Boushey & Joan Moser (The 2 Sisters)

Combining their knowledge, these sisters have experience in grades K–6, Special Education, and Literacy Coaching. Their books, The Daily 5: Fostering Literacy Independence in the Elementary Grades and The Café Book–Engaging all Students in Daily Literacy Assessment and Instruction, are renown to teachers around the world. In addition, they participate in conferences around the nation, and provide timely professional development through their DVDs and extensive website www.thedailycafe.com.

Timothy Rasinski

Rasinski’s expertise includes reading fluency and word study, reading in elementary and middle grades, struggling readers, and parental involvement. He is a professor of literacy education at Kent State University, and in 2010 Rasinski was elected to the International Reading Hall of Fame. He has served on the Board of Directors of the International Reading Association, and his research on reading has been published in journals such as Reading Research Quarterly, The Reading Teacher, Reading Psychology, and the Journal of Educational Research. Rasinski has also served as co-editor of The Reading Teacher and the Journal of Literacy Research.

Doug Buehl

Buehl is a teacher, professional development leader, and adolescent literacy consultant. He spent 33 years in the Madison Metropolitan School District and presents literacy workshops, collaborates with teachers as a school literacy coach, teaches struggling readers, coordinates a school wide content area tutoring program, teaches college-preparatory advanced reading, and teaches night school students returning for their high school diploma. In addition, he was a founding member of IRA’s Commission on Adolescent Literacy and was a part of the interdisciplinary task force that drafted the national Standards for Middle and High School Literacy Coaches (2006), a joint collaboration between IRA, the National Council of Teachers of English, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the National Science Teachers Association, and the National Council for the Social Studies. He is the author of many books, including Developing Readers in the Academic Disciplines and Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning, Fourth Edition.

Jana Echevarria & MaryEllen Vogt

Both Echevarria and Vogt are co-developers with Deborah Short of the Sheltered Instruction Observational Protocol (SIOP) Model of Instruction. Echevarria’s experience includes elementary and secondary teaching in general education, special education, English as a Second Language (ESL), and bilingual programs. Her research focuses on effective instruction for English Learners, including those with learning disabilities. She has published over 50 books, book chapters, and journal articles.

Vogt has been a classroom teacher, reading specialist, special education specialist, curriculum coordinator, and teacher educator. She was invited to serve as a Visiting Scholar at the University of Cologne in Germany. Vogt was the President of the International Reading Association, inducted into the California Reading Hall of Fame, and received her university’s Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award.

Phyllis C. Hunter

Hunter had the esteemed experience of being an advisor to the President of the United States and the Secretary of Education. As a reading manager of the Houston ISD, she led the reading initiative that ultimately shaped the nation’s reading policy. She serves on the advisory board for the Broad Prize in Urban Education, the Consortium for Reading Excellence (CORE), the Neuhaus Education Center, and the National Center for Family Literacy. She was also named the Marcus Garvey Educator of the Year in 2002 by the National Alliance of Black School Educators. And in 2009, Scholastic Inc. presented her with its inaugural Heroes Award for her contributions to the field of children’s literacy. In addition, Hunter is the author of the Phyllis C. Hunter Classroom Libraries and It’s Not Complicated: What I Know for Sure About Helping Our Students of Color Become Successful Readers.

Michelle Kelley & Nicki Clausen-Grace

Michelle J. Kelley focuses on comprehension and the role of independent reading in terms of engagement, motivation, self-efficacy, and metacognition. She is an associate professor in reading at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, where she teaches pre-service teachers and graduate students in the Teaching and Learning Principles Department. She recently became a Professor in Residence at Carillon Elementary School in Oviedo, Florida. Kelly has authored several children’s books, been recognized with several Disney Teacherrific awards, and received numerous grants to facilitate literacy. Currently, she’s a co-editor of Literacy Research and Instruction, a journal published by the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers.

Nicki Clausen-Grace is a teacher, author, consultant, and staff developer. As a consultant, she speaks about reading engagement, content area reading, literature/text circles, word study, and comprehension strategies. Clausen-Grace teaches fourth grade at Carillon Elementary School in Oviedo, Florida. She has won numerous Disney Innovative Teaching Practices and Teacherrific awards, and she attained National Board Certification as a Middle Childhood Generalist in 1999. As a columnist for Central Florida Family, she has authored more than 50 articles on local schools and other education topics. Clausen-Grace and Kelly have recently released Comprehension Shouldn’t Be Silent: From Strategy Instruction to Student Independence, Second Edition.

Jennifer Altieri

Altieri has conducted workshops at the elementary and middle school levels on various literacy topics, and served as a reading consultant for elementary and middle schools in the St. Louis Public and University City school districts in St. Louis, Missouri, and at Port Royal Elementary in Beaufort, South Carolina. She is a professor at St. John’s University in Queens, New York, and author of Powerful Content Connections: Nurturing Readers, Writers and Thinkers in Grades K-3; Content Counts! Developing Disciplinary Literacy Skills, K–6; and Literacy + Math = Creative Connections in the Elementary Classroom. Altieri has published articles in Teaching Children Mathematics, Teaching Exceptional Children, Reading Psychology, Reading Research and Instruction, among other professional journals. In addition, she served on IRA’s 2010 Standards Committee and Charleston Mayor Riley’s Literacy Task Force.

The IRA 2014 Conference is in New Orleans from May 10–12, 2014, and Institute Day is May 9. Register online, by phone, by fax, or by mail. See www.iraconference.org for details. We look forward to seeing you in New Orleans!

Chelsea Miller is the strategic communications intern at the International Reading Association.

The International Reading Association (IRA) is pleased to continue the tradition of offering full-day Institutes before our Annual Conference. This year in New Orleans, Institute Day is May 9 before the IRA Conference begins on May 10. Reading Today Online asked all of the Institute Chairpersons to answer a set of questions designed to give our readers and all prospective attendees a better understanding of the insights and benefits they will gain from attending these day-long programs. A PDF fact sheet covering this Institute is available for presentation to your principal or superintendent along with your registration and travel request.

Institute 08
In Common: An Introduction to Using an Annotated Collection of K–12 Student Writing Samples Aligned with the Common Core
(Session 1620)

Co-Chairs: Diana Leddy and Joanna Hawkins from the Vermont Writing Collaborative

What are the professional urgencies and issues that your Institute is designed to address?

Teachers have long believed that learning to write well in response to reading, and to clearly express an understanding of complex information and ideas in writing, is fundamentally important work for students. However, what this “effective work” can actually look like in the classroom, especially for struggling students, has often eluded us. In the era of Common Core writing standards, developing a shared understanding of some of the ways that strong and effective, content-based writing can look is essential for teachers at all grade levels.

Jointly created by the Vermont Writing Collaborative and Student Achievement Partners, “In Common: Effective Writing for All Students” is a collection of student writing samples, grades K–12, drawn from over 1,600 submissions from 11 Common Core adopting states. The collection includes on-demand writing to unified text based prompts, as well as samples of classroom work in each of the three Common Core writing types. Pieces from across the country were selected and annotated by teams of experienced classroom teachers and literacy leaders in collaboration with lead authors of the Common Core ELA Standards.

In Common is not a set of rubrics and benchmarks, nor is it a prescription for the only way effective, content-based writing can look. Rather, In Common is a collection that was designed to help teachers and students develop a deep and nuanced understanding of the Common Core writing standards and the instructional shifts they require. By using some new protocols, we will look at that student work, not through the lens of scoring, but through the lens of learning about the writing standards and how those standards can relate to content understanding – for students.

What types of literacy professionals is your Institute designed for?

Professional Development Providers, Teacher Educators, Undergraduate or Graduate Students, Classroom Teachers, Administrators, and Curriculum Coordinators.

How will your Institute benefit those professionals, and what will their takeaways be?

In Common, we believe, can be an important first step in the all-important work that schools need to do in generating strong, content-based, Common Core Standards-based student work, across all content areas. The Common Ground protocols provide a useful structure for collaboratively looking at that work to improve instruction.

Participants will leave with a set of protocols and access to a collection of student work samples designed to provide a foundation for analysis and discussions that lead to a deep and nuanced understanding of the Common Core writing standards. Teachers have overwhelmingly found working with In Common useful and even illuminating in terms of understanding both the Common Core writing standards themselves and in generating ideas for instruction.

Are any post-conference follow up activities planned for attendees of your Institute?

Participants will be invited to join an ongoing online discussion about using student samples to improve writing instruction.

What is the sequence of topics and speakers?

The presentation will begin with a short introduction to In Common: Effective Writing for All Students, a Common Core implementation resource for writing instruction. The introduction will include an explanation of how the student writing samples were generated, collected, reviewed and annotated, as well as directions for accessing this free, online resource. Break-out sessions will allow participants to focus on either the elementary or middle/high school pieces. Participants will then explore In Common in small groups, using activities easily transferable to a variety of professional development, classroom, or instructional support settings.

What modes of presentation will be used and what types of audience interaction are planned?

Most of the session will be spent actively analyzing and discussing student work samples with colleagues in small groups. In addition to helping participants to better understand the Common Core Writing samples, all activities will serve as active and engaging models of how to use In Common with adults, older students and younger students. Activities include:

• arranging student pieces which were written to a unified prompt in ascending order and analyzing the differences in order to examine grade level progressions in the standards
• matching Common Core based annotations to specific parts of student pieces
•  identifying evidence of close reading and the mastery of content and concepts in the written pieces
• color-coding pieces to analyze the relationship between the ideas expressed in an informative or argumentative piece

What handouts will be provided and in what form (e.g., hard copy or digital transmission)?

Sample packets of student work (in hard copy) will be used during the institute. In addition, participants will be shown how to access the full collection of student work (K–12) and protocols for professional development digitally.

Does your Institute lend itself to team attendance by teachers and administrators from the same school or district? If so, what how will the various attendee perspectives be addressed?

The Institute will provide teams of teachers and administrators from the same district the opportunity to develop a shared understanding of the Common Core Writing Standards as well as a model and materials for leading school or district wide professional development activities.

Registration Information: This preconference Institute will be held at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Friday, May 9, 2014, before the International Reading Association 59th Annual Conference begins on Saturday, May 10, 2014 (and runs through Monday, May 12, 2014). Register online at www.iraconference.org for this or another Institute and/or to register for the annual conference. Call 888-294-9167 or 415-979-2278 to find out how to register by phone, fax, or mail. To learn more about conference events in New Orleans, visit the annual conference website and the online itinerary planner (iPlanner).

 

The popular Teaching Edge series is returning to IRA’s 59th Annual Conference. The four speakers at our Teaching Edge series are sure to inform and delight attendees, making a memorable experience for the fourth year in a row.

Douglas Fisher & Nancy Frey

Douglas Fisher is a professor at San Diego State University and a teacher leader at Health Sciences High & Middle College. He has participated in previous Teaching Edge events for IRA and co-authored, with Nancy Frey and Diane Lapp, the bestseller Text Complexity: Raising Rigor in Reading.

Nancy Frey is a professor of literacy in the School of Teacher Education at San Diego State University. In 2008 she won the Early Career Achievement Award from the National Reading Conference. She is also a special educator and reading specialist in California.

Kelly Gallagher

Kelly Gallagher also returns to our Teaching Edge series. He is a teacher with over 27 years’ experience and author of Write Like This: Teaching Real-World Writing Through Modeling and Mentor Texts and Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It. He is the former co-director of the South Basin Writing Project at California State University.

Debbie Diller

Debbie Diller makes her Teaching Edge debut after leading a popular session at IRA 2013. Diller is a Title I reading specialist, literacy coach, and national education consultant with over 35 years of experience. She has published numerous books and her articles have been published in The Reading Teacher and The State of Reading.

With a lineup of speakers like this, Teaching Edge is certain to be another hit. The IRA 59th Annual Conference will be held May 9–12, 2014, in New Orleans. Register online, by phone, by fax, or by mail. For more information, visit www.iraconference.org.

Chelsea Miller is the strategic communications intern at the International Reading Association.

We have made it even easier to register for the International Reading Association 59th Annual Conference in New Orleans online and to find the forms to print and mail or fax! Simply visit www.iraconference.org and click on “Registration is Now Open!” to begin your registration process. In this article, we share tips on how to complete your registration and housing process quickly and efficiently.

Before You Register

First, review the Annual Conference website at www.iraconference.org and take a look at the iPlanner (itinerary planner), which offers detailed descriptions for the more than 300 sessions and events being offered in New Orleans between May 10 and 12 and the 11 full-day Institutes scheduled on May 9.

Be Prepared

To make your registration process faster, it is helpful to have these items handy:

• If you are an IRA member, or have created an account with IRA to purchase books, etc., have your IRA logins and passwords ready. (If you don’t remember them, there is an option to have your password sent to you at the beginning of the online registration process.)
• Students should have their student I.D. numbers and institutional affiliation accessible to receive the student discount.
• If you’re bringing a guest, it is useful to have this guest’s full name and phone number.
• Of course, have your credit card nearby for payment.

An Important Note

We have created an online registration process that seamlessly guides you through the steps of registration and housing. Please do not use your Internet browser’s “back” and “forward” buttons as you register. Instead, use the orange buttons found at the top and bottom of the registration webpages.

Log In to Save Time

The first page of online registration gives you three options:

• “Log In” (for IRA members and people with accounts who know their name and password)
• “Create an Account” (which allows you to create an account from scratch)
• “Forgot Password?” (which sends a password reset form to your e-mail address)

If you have created an account before, the system will not allow you to create a new account using an e-mail address that you have used to create an account in the past. So, if you know you have an account, it’s best to use the “Forgot Password?” option instead of the “Create an Account” option.

On this page you will also see links to print the registration forms to fax them to 415-293-4399 or mail them to:

IRA Registration
c/o Convention Management Resources
33 New Montgomery, Suite 1100
San Francisco, CA 94105

 

Starting to Register

The next page of online registration gives you several options. You can choose to “Register Now” or “Book Hotel.” You will be able to switch between the two options during the process, or to register for one section and login later to finish the other.

For the example in this article, let’s begin by clicking on “Register Now.”

Conference Choices

On this page, you select your conference attendance, whether it is the Conference & Exhibits (full conference) or just a single day.

If you only want to attend for two days, choose the “Conference & Exhibits” option. (There isn’t a two-day option since choosing two individual days would actually cost more money than the full conference!)

This page also allows you to select one of our 11 full-day, preconference Institutes on May 9. There is a separate fee for Institutes, beyond the cost of registration.

 

When finished selecting, click the orange “Next Page” button at the bottom of the screen.

Author Luncheons

The next page allows you to register for one or more of our three Author Luncheons. Speakers include Judy Moody series author Megan McDonald (Saturday), Ball Don’t Lie and We Were Here author Matt de la Peña (Sunday), and Magic Treehouse series author Mary Pope Osborne (Monday). While the luncheons cost an additional fee beyond registration, savvy conference-goers know that they are a great way to enjoy a quality, sit-down lunch and time to network with colleagues.

When finished selecting, click on the “Next Page” button at the bottom of the page.

Guest Registration

You are invited to bring a guest to the luncheons based on the registrants conference purchase. This next page will guide you through adding this guest to one or more luncheons. When finished selecting, click on the “Next Page” button.

 

All About You

On the next page, we want to get to know you! Fill out this questionnaire, making sure to complete the questions with asterisks next to them. Click on the “Next Page” button at the bottom of the page to continue.

The next page gives you the option of paying now (orange “Check Out” button) or selecting your hotel (orange “Book Hotel” button). 

 

For this example, let’s make our hotel reservations.

Book Housing

Our hotel pages allows you to choose from 29 hotels. You can use the “Sort By” option on the left to list them by hotel name, proximity to convention center, and price.

Once you click an orange “Reserve” button, the next page asks you to input your contact information. Most of the information will automatically appear based on the account you entered at the beginning of this process.

When finished, click the orange “Confirm Registration” button at the bottom of the page.

 

At this point, you will be returned to the overview page, now showing your conference registration as well as your hotel reservation.

 

This page gives you three options: “Edit Your Registration” (if you need to change your conference attendance choices), “Edit Your Reservation” (if you need to change your hotel choices), and “Check Out.”

For this example, let’s go ahead and check out.

Check Out

When you click on the orange “Check Out” button, you will be taken to a payment page. Simply fill out the information and click on the box to accept Terms and Conditions so  the “Submit Payment” button appears at the bottom of the page.

 

You Did It!

The next page you see is an overview page with a barcode that you can print and bring to registration in New Orleans! This page includes information about your conference registration, hotel, and other helpful links. A duplicate of this page will be e-mailed to you as well (from the address IRAReg@cmrus.com). Refer to this e-mail confirmation in case you need to go back to your conference registration or hotel reservation to make changes. 

 

BONUS: Be sure to visit www.iraconference.org/promotions to see all current special promotions, including special discounts and giveaways!

Sara Long is an editor/content manager at the International Reading Association. 

The IRA Board of Directors has appointed IRA Past President Carrice Cummins to serve as Vice President for the remainder of the year, filling in for IRA Vice President Maryann Manning who died suddenly last September. Cummins’ tenure in this interim role will conclude on the last day of the IRA New Orleans Conference, May 12, 2014, when current IRA President Maureen McLaughlin hands over the gavel to IRA President Elect Jill Lewis.

Cummins’ appointment will not affect the current election cycle, which is due to commence later this month. Voting members of IRA will elect next year’s Vice President, who will take office on the last day of the New Orleans Conference, May 12, 2014, along with the other newly elected members of the Board. The Board will postpone, until a future time, any decision on filling the vacancy that will arise when Cummins’ interim appointment is concluded.

Maryann Manning’s sudden and untimely death was a shock to all of her colleagues on the IRA Board. In selecting Carrice Cummins to serve out the year in her stead, the Board secures the participation and services of someone uniquely situated to join in the Board’s ongoing deliberations. Carrice began her presidential term around the same time that Marcie Craig Post, IRA’s Executive Director, took office. Many of the critical strategic initiatives which the Association is currently immersed in were commenced during Carrice’s presidency, making her selection for the pro tem role a logical choice.

Now at full strength, the IRA Board, in tandem with the Executive Director and staff, continues to address strategic priorities while the important day-to-day work, including planning an outstanding conference for New Orleans, proceeds apace.