Professional Development This Summer

I’m so excited to be presenting this summer at SDE’s 2012 I Teach K! National Kindergarten Teachers Conference in Las Vegas, NV. Be sure to save the date and mark your calendars for July 9-12, 2012. http://www.sde.com/IteachK2012/

At this year's conference, I'll be making presentations on four different topics. One of my presentations will focus on Environmental Print in the Kindergarten Classroom, where we'll explore practical strategies for using everday objects, such as toy labels and cereal boxes, to guide young children in building essential literacy and math skills. Another session that I'll lead will focus on Nurturing Voluminous Vocabularies in Kindergarten Classrooms, where we'll examine research-based ways that we can strengthen students' oral language development. I'll also share ideas for Meaningful and Independent Practice in Kindergarten through Work Stations that help students build reading skills and stamina. Finally, I'll make a presentation on Bringing Young Males into the World of Literacy through Informational Texts where we'll explore what motivates beginning male readers to engage with texts and ways that we can nurture that motivation in classroom settings.

In attending SDE's National I Teach K! Conference, you’ll discover how to build extraordinary kindergarten classrooms that prepare our children for the rigorous and evolving demands of the 21st century— while keeping the fun factor alive and well. Please share this news and tell your friends and colleagues!

I’m also excited to be presenting this summer at SDE’s 2012 National Conference on Differentiated Instruction, which will also be in Las Vegas, NV. Be sure to save the date and mark your calendars for July 10-13, 2012. http://www.sde.com/DI2012/
I'll be making four different presentations at this year's conference, too. One of my sessions will be Working with Word Walls, where I'll share ways to make a word wall an interactive tool to promote growth in decoding, spelling, and vocabulary skills, rather than a mere classroom decoration. Another session that I'll be presenting will be Fluency: Teaching the Rhythm of Reading. In this session, we'll explore ways to differentiate instruction in reading accuracy, reading rate, reading expression, and reading comprehension. I'll also present a session on Nurturing Voluminous Vocabularies in which I'll share ideas for refining and expanding students' vocabularies by involving multiple learning modalities. Finally, I'll present a session on Increasing Motivation and Achievement through Tiered Partnering Activities where we'll examine practical ways of differentiating both the content and the methods of teaching (i.e., tiering our instruction) so that grade-level standards can be attained by ALL students.

In attending the National Conference on Differentiated Instruction, you’ll pack your toolbox with a wide range of relevant, research-based, immediately applicable strategies that have powerful theories into best practices. Please share this news and tell your friends and colleagues!

I hope to see many of you at one, or both, of these conferences in Las Vegas in July!