Friday, October 2nd, 2026 – Day One

(Please note that session times and descriptions may vary slightly from what is currently posted below. If a session shown below is not available in the registration system, it is likely sold out.

Registration & Buffet Breakfast – 7:00 to 8:10 am

Welcome & Opening Remarks – 8:10 to 8:30 am

Friday Plenary Presentation

8:30 am to 10:00 am

Dr. Joanna Chrisodoulou

How We Become Readers: Insights from Cognitive Neuroscience and Education

The process of learning to read is one of the most monumental experiences students will have. Reading is a portal to learning new content, engaging with others, participating in society, and pursuing careers. This presentation will discuss the role of the brain in reading acquisition, addressing reading development for students with and without reading disorders. We will discuss brain plasticity during this process, and in response to reading interventions for struggling readers. We will discussion implications for educational policy and practice.

Break – 10:00 to 10:20 am – Visit Exhibitors (Sign up for Raffle Items) & Check out the IDA-RMB Bookstore

Friday Morning Breakout Sessions

10:20 to 11:45 am – Choose 1 of 6 Possible Sessions

Dr. Joanna Christodoulou

Executive Function, ADHD, and Reading Challenges

Reading success depends not only on decoding and oral language, but also on executive function (EF) processes. This session will share current models of EF and highlight how EF supports reading tasks, from sounding out words to understanding text. We will discuss how EF challenges are framed in educational settings and in cognitive neuroscience research, and how ADHD and EF challenges compare. Our focus will be on how EF differences and/or ADHD can contribute to reading difficulties such as in dyslexia. The talk will also review current evidence on EF-related interventions and implications for reading instruction. We will draw on insights from cognitive neuroscience and education contexts to offer an integrated perspective on EF and reading.

Brie Johnson, Senior Literacy Consultant with Multilingual Learner Focus; Hunter Smith, Multilingual Learners with Educational Disabilities Specialist; and Mandy Harris, B.S., M.Ed., Senior Literacy Consultant

Like-Peer Comparative Data for Multilingual Learners 

Educators, schools, and districts make important decisions about curriculum, programs, schedules, student placement, and interventions. When these decisions involve Multilingual Learners (MLs), it is essential to analyze data carefully, with attention to language proficiency, sociocultural factors, and multiple sources of evidence that impact academic achievement. Participants will be introduced to the like-peer comparative data process and a tool that can support facilitating data conversations that include using reading screening results with intentionality and a broader body of evidence to support more accurate, equitable, and student-centered decisions for Multilingual Learners.

Christina Rodriguez, M.S., and Jill Lauren, M.A.

Bringing Decodable Books to Life with Syntax and Inferencing Activities

Decodable texts are essential for developing accurate word reading, but decoding alone is not enough – especially for students with diverse learning needs. This session explores the role of multicriteria decodable books intentionally designed to build comprehension, from sentence-level syntax to higher-level inferencing.
Grounded in Structured Literacy and the Science of Reading, participants will learn practical strategies for explicitly teaching sentence comprehension through a highly structured approach to syntax instruction. As beginning and striving readers construct meaning at the sentence level, they are better able to understand story grammar, leading to a deeper ability to comprehend and make inferences. Through interactive modeling, educators will learn how to integrate explicit inferencing instruction into their lessons.
Participants will leave with actionable tools to strengthen comprehension instruction and improve literacy outcomes. This session is ideal for teachers, interventionists, and leaders working with elementary and middle school students who need more than foundational decoding skills.

Martha Shehan, Director in Teaching and Learning, Jeffco Public Schools; and Jannelle Davis, Admin Coordinator within Teaching and Learning, Jeffco Public Schools

Bridging Policy to Practice: Jeffco’s Universal Dyslexia Screener System-Wide Implementation

In preparation for Senate Bill 25-200, Jeffco Public Schools launched a comprehensive Universal Dyslexia Screener process for all K-3 students during the 2025-26 school year. This session explores the district’s journey moving from legislative mandate to sustainable classroom practice.
Presenters will share Jeffco’s multi-phased rollout strategy, a cross-departmental effort involving a District Task Force, School-Based Focus Groups, and a parent and community advisory group. Designed to emphasize the systemic nature of the work, this strategy includes a robust professional learning plan and the adoption of Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) within the DIBELS 8/Lectura framework.
Attendees will learn how Jeffco integrated screening into a Structured Literacy framework to prioritize early risk identification over formal diagnosis. The session explores how Jeffco empowers educators to transform assessment results into a tool for deepening trust through rebranded Family Partnership Conferences. Participants will walk away with a roadmap for system-wide implementation, including ideas for staff professional learning and family communication designed to foster inclusive, solution-oriented dialogues.

Kelly Ash, Ph.D., M.S., Certified Dyslexia Interventionist District Literacy Lead and READ Act Coordinator

From Silo to System: Leading Word Recognition Instruction in Middle School

Most secondary educators now know that struggling adolescent readers need explicit, systematic word recognition instruction. So why does that instruction so often fail to take hold once students leave elementary school? This session shares findings from a qualitative case study of middle school ELA teachers who each also taught a Tier 2 reading intervention, and it reveals a pattern with real consequences for our students: the instructional silo.
In these classrooms, word recognition work lived almost entirely inside the intervention block, disconnected from the core ELA experience, even when the same teacher taught both. The result is a quiet structural problem that no single lesson plan can fix. The study also surfaces a “”leadership identity paradox,”” in which teachers hold genuine expertise yet do not see themselves as positioned to lead change across the system.
Grounded in the Simple View of Reading and Distributed Leadership Theory, this session moves from diagnosis to action. Attendees will learn to recognize the markers of an instructional silo in their own buildings, including telltale signs hidden in the master schedule, and will leave with a practical audit tool and a set of distributed-leadership moves for coaches, administrators, and teacher-leaders. Whether you are a classroom teacher, an interventionist, or a building leader, you will leave with concrete ways to turn isolated word recognition instruction into a coherent, schoolwide system that reaches the adolescent readers who need it most.

Jenna Berry, Ed.D.

Laying the Groundwork: Implementation Science for Literacy Change

Morphology instruction can create powerful connections between key literacy skills. Though it is increasingly incorporated in reading instruction, morphology is sometimes taught in isolation though research suggests that morphology should be taught as part of broader literacy instruction including other elements critical to reading success (Bowers et al., 2010).
In this session, teachers will initially participate in a traditional morphology work routine with word sums and matrices, followed by four other routines connecting morphology work and spelling, syntax, vocabulary, and fluency. For each activity, teachers will discuss connections the routine has with other elements and how activities might be incorporated into a broader literacy plan.

Lunch Buffet – Synthesize the Morning’s Learning with Colleagues

11:45am to 12:45pm – Visit Exhibitors, Sign up for Raffle Items, & Check Out the IDA-RMB Bookstore

Friday Afternoon – 1st Breakout Sessions

12:45 pm to 2:10 pm – Choose 1 of 6 Possible Sessions

Lynni Nordheim, M.Ed.

From Striving to Thriving: A Districtwide Model for Adolescent Literacy Success

This session explores how a Colorado school district is addressing adolescent literacy gaps through an innovative model of credit-bearing structured literacy courses for middle and high school students. Presenter will outline the program’s development, including teacher training, student placement processes, and implementation strategies.
Building on a similar session presented at last year’s conference, this updated session shares a full year of implementation data, emerging student outcomes, and key lessons learned through the pilot. The session will also feature brief video clips demonstrating the program in action, along with testimonials from students and teachers. Participants will gain a practical framework for designing and implementing comparable initiatives in their own schools or districts, with the goal of empowering striving readers with the skills necessary for academic success.
The session will also briefly cover a new initiative built to complement secondary structured literacy courses, in which secondary content teachers are trained in best practices in adolescent literacy, to give them tools to support all readers in their classes while still meeting their content standards.

Mary Todd, M.Ed., Assistant Literacy Lecturer, Elementary Education Program Coordinator

44 Sounds, 26 Letters, and 250+ Graphemes: Making the Connection

Many educators are surprised to learn that English contains approximately 44 phonemes, only 26 letters, and more than 250 graphemes. In this interactive session, participants will explore one of the most common “light bulb moments” experienced by preservice teachers as they discover how phonemic awareness and orthographic mapping work together to support reading and spelling development.
Drawing on current research and classroom experience, participants will engage in hands-on phonemic awareness and orthographic mapping activities while exploring the differences between letters, phonemes, and graphemes. Through discussion, reflection, and active participation, attendees will deepen their understanding of how sounds and symbols connect and why these concepts are critical for effective literacy instruction.
Participants will leave with practical activities, instructional strategies, and a deeper understanding of how explicit phonemic awareness instruction connected to grapheme learning can support readers and writers of all ages.

IDA-RMB Experience Dyslexia™ Simulation

Ever wondered what it’s truly like to learn with dyslexia? Ready to transform your understanding of the students you support?
Step beyond wondering and into authentic understanding. This powerful, hands-on experience reveals the daily realities students with language-based learning differences navigate—from decoding text to processing instructions. You’ll gain profound insights into why students respond the way they do, replacing frustration with empathy and confusion with clarity.
More than just awareness, you’ll leave equipped with practical strategies and a renewed perspective that will help you understand the power of Structured Literacy and change how you support and connect with diverse learners.
Join us for the Experience Dyslexia™ Simulation—where empathy meets action.

Dr. Jennifer Throndsen, Educational Consultant

Scaffolding Strategies for Inclusive Access to Grade-Level Text

Accessing grade-level text is essential for all learners—including students with dyslexia and multilingual learners—and requires intentional, explicit scaffolding rather than lowered expectations. This interactive 90-minute session bridges research to practice by introducing several evidence-based scaffolding strategies grounded in the science of reading, language development, and learning sciences.
Participants will explore how to systematically support background knowledge, vocabulary, language comprehension, and executive functioning skills to improve access to complex texts across content areas. Through modeling, guided practice, and collaborative application, attendees will examine how these strategies can be used to support diverse learners, including those with reading and writing difficulties, attention challenges, and language-based learning differences.
Participants will engage with ready-to-use planning tools, explicit instructional routines, and adaptable scaffolding techniques that can be immediately applied in classrooms and intervention settings. Attendees will leave equipped to design inclusive, grade-level instruction that promotes access, engagement, and comprehension for every learner.

Shantell Blake, Ed.D., Reading Science

Feedback That Changes Practice: Increasing Behavior-Specific Praise to Boost Student Engagement

Aligned with the International Dyslexia Association’s Structured Literacy framework, which emphasizes targeted, prompt feedback as a principle of effective instruction, this session highlights how structured performance feedback can strengthen teachers’ use of effective praise. The presenter will report findings from original research that suggest that performance feedback can increase dyslexia interventionists’ use of behavior-specific praise during reading intervention (Blake et al., 2026). Behavior-specific praise is linked to improved student on-task behaviors and academic engagement (Brophy, 1983; Lindstrom & Roberts, 2023; Reinke et al., 2007). Participants will leave with practical strategies for delivering effective corrective and affirmative feedback, focusing on increasing behavior-specific praise to support student engagement and on-task behavior.

Erin Pzinski, Ed.D.

Rapid Naming: Myths, Implications, and What Educators Can Do

Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) is a strong predictor of future reading success, yet many educators remain unsure about how to interpret and respond to slow RAN performance. This session will explore what current research has (and has not) revealed about rapid naming, including common misconceptions. Participants will examine the implications of slow rapid naming within a structured literacy framework.
Most importantly, this session will focus on practical implications for classroom instruction and intervention planning. Educators will learn how to use RAN data alongside other assessment data to make informed instructional decisions for students. Through examples, discussion, and instructional applications, participants will leave with a better understanding of how to support students who demonstrate slow rapid naming without overinterpreting or relying on ineffective and unsupported interventions. This session is for educators who are ready to finally understand what we can be doing when those slow RAN scores appear.

Break – 2:10 to 2:30 pm – Visit Exhibitors (Sign up for Raffle Items) & Check out the IDA-RMB Bookstore

Friday Afternoon – 2nd Breakout Sessions

2:30 pm to 3:55 pm – Choose 1 of 6 Possible Sessions

Anne Whitney, Ed.D., CCC-SLP; and Morgan Lipton, M.A., CCC-SLP

Teasing Out Hidden DLD in School-Aged Children

Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) has been known by many names, including specific language impairment, language delay, and developmental dysphasia. DLD is often referred to as a hidden disability; however, it emerges in early childhood and persists into adulthood. DLD may be associated with a variety of comorbidities, including dyslexia. As students get older, DLD is often far more difficult to identify, and responses to interventions are hindered by inadequate identification. In this session, we will investigate the defining features of DLD in the school-aged population – which skills are affected and which evaluation methods are recommended. After exploring what DLD is and how it presents in the school-aged population, we will look at three case studies of individuals with late-diagnosed DLD, specifically examining their diagnostic profiles and how DLD was differentiated from dyslexia.

Kristin Bjorn, M.S.

Connected Phonation: A Pathway to Automatic Word Reading

According to decoding threshold theory, young readers must develop accurate and automatic word blending in order to read and comprehend text. While many students reach this threshold through typical classroom instruction, other students, including those with phonological, working memory, language development, or other learning differences, may struggle to reach the decoding threshold necessary to become proficient readers.
Emerging research by Linnea Ehri shows that connected phonation may be more effective than segmented blending instruction. Rather than directly teaching the skill of connected phonation blending, many early reading programs seem to watch students go through different stages of learning to blend. While typically developing learners may be able to make the jumps required to develop efficient blending on their own, children who struggle often are unable to piece together how to blend words without more overt teaching and support. They need solid, systematic instruction that will lead them to strong, automatic blending. This presentation will give a practical, hands-on technique to help students develop body-coda blending, a scaffolded, connected phonation blending technique. With this smooth, efficient word blending, children can build word reading skills that will help them attain the decoding threshold and become proficient readers.
This session introduces a practical, systematic approach to teaching connected phonation and body-coda blending that helps students move from effortful decoding to automatic word recognition. Participants will engage in hands-on activities and leave with immediately applicable instructional routines designed to strengthen blending skills, accelerate word reading development, and support students in reaching the decoding threshold necessary for reading proficiency.

Christina Rodriguez, M.S. and Jill Lauren, M.A.

Bringing Decodable Books to Life with Syntax and Inferencing Activities

Decodable texts are essential for developing accurate word reading, but decoding alone is not enough – especially for students with diverse learning needs. This session explores the role of multicriteria decodable books intentionally designed to build comprehension, from sentence-level syntax to higher-level inferencing.
Grounded in Structured Literacy and the Science of Reading, participants will learn practical strategies for explicitly teaching sentence comprehension through a highly structured approach to syntax instruction. As beginning and striving readers construct meaning at the sentence level, they are better able to understand story grammar, leading to a deeper ability to comprehend and make inferences. Through interactive modeling, educators will learn how to integrate explicit inferencing instruction into their lessons.
Participants will leave with actionable tools to strengthen comprehension instruction and improve literacy outcomes. This session is ideal for teachers, interventionists, and leaders working with elementary and middle school students who need more than foundational decoding skills.

Stella Rios Nowell, NBCT Literacy Lecturer

Using Read-Alouds to Enhance Student Engagement in Morphology, Vocabulary, Modeled Fluency and Comprehension

Read-Alouds are a critical component to the research-based instructional literacy landscape. Using Read-Alouds to Enhance Student Engagement in Morphology, Vocabulary, Modeled Fluency and Comprehension will guide educators to make the most of read-alouds and repeated reading. This session will include opportunities for educators to collaborate, practice and apply concepts of vocabulary, morphology, and modeled fluency to build comprehension from texts that not only promote equity but also build background knowledge.

Karen Tzanetopoulos, SLP and Math Learning Expert

Transparent Mathematics Language, Visuals, and Practice for Mathematics Success

Many, but not all, students with dyslexia and other language disorders have difficulty learning math. The English language of mathematics is particularly abstract and places a heavy burden on phonological processing, morphological processing, RAN, syntax, and learning complex vocabulary. The complex aspects of English mathematical language are the very same ones that students with language difficulties struggle with most, creating a double whammy. Math difficulty can begin as early as learning to count, and difficulty building foundational math skills leads to long-term math difficulty. To make matters worse, mathematics is increasingly taught with a heavy emphasis on language, reading, writing, explanation of reasoning, and word problems. The inquiry (or discovery) model is the predominant method of math instruction in the US today and shares roots with the whole-language approach to reading. The inquiry model discourages teachers from using explicit instruction or providing models for problem solving, placing students with dyslexia and dyscalculia at a significant disadvantage, even when they have inherent mathematical ability. Learn ways to reduce the language load and provide transparent instruction, so all students can succeed in math. All students can learn math with the appropriate instruction.

Katherine Kinsman, Director of Landmark Outreach, and Margot Marcou, Outreach Lead Faculty

Leveraging Executive Function in Structured Literacy

This presentation will dive into the complexity of executive function as it relates to reading and writing tasks. We know that structured literacy asks that content be delivered following a direct and systematic approach that is also mastery-oriented. These principles to guide instruction align with the systems needed to support the development of executive function skills. The presentation will explore how these brain functions impact classroom behavior and everyday life. A heavy emphasis will be placed on the interaction between emotion and learning, especially in the context of a diagnosed reading difficulty, such as dyslexia. Supporting students’ metacognition and personal learning awareness will also be addressed, looking at how targeted, prompt feedback can lead to self-reflection activities for students. Instructional strategies will be shared, with a focus on the importance of routines and strategies to support the development of executive function for learners across developmental stages.