Show Me Science Of Reading Conference 2023

What Show Me Science Of Reading Conference 2023 Actually Was

It was a regional gathering focused on structured literacy and evidence-based reading instruction, held in the Midwest area, brought together by the Show Me Science of Reading organization. The 2023 iteration ran for about two days and drew classroom teachers, special education specialists, reading coaches, and a handful of district administrators who were trying to make the switch from balanced literacy programs to systematic phonics-based instruction. Most sessions were led by classroom practitioners and reading specialists rather than university researchers, which meant the content was highly practical but occasionally skimmed over the research backing. The main tracks covered foundational skills instruction, decoding and phonics scope and sequence, morphology for upper elementary, assessment-driven grouping, and the transition process for schools already committed to certain curricula like Orton-Gillingham or Wilson. There was also a separate session block on RTI/MTSS alignment and how to document progress monitoring data in a way that actually satisfies state audit requirements, which turned out to be one of the more crowded rooms.

Show Me Science Of Reading Conference 2023 Key Takeaways and Notes

One of the things most people walked away with was a clearer sense of the materials they'd need to replace. Several vendors had booths, but the sessions themselves did not have heavy sales pitches. The presenters mostly showed side-by-side comparisons of word study activities, decodable text progression charts, and sample lesson flows. If you went in looking for a curriculum recommendation, you would leave with enough names to start narrowing down but probably not enough to make a final decision on the spot. The assessment piece was the most practical segment. They covered basic screening tools like DIBELS Next and AIMSweb, plus how to pair those with informal phonics inventories. The tricky part that came up repeatedly was knowing which students needed intervention versus those who just needed better classroom instruction. A lot of people struggle with that line, and the conference did not resolve it completely, but it gave a framework for making the call using a combination of screening scores, running records, and phoneme segmentation fluency data. I attended a session on building a scope and sequence that matches your phonics program to your state standards, and the presenter made an error that a lot of people repeat: mapping spelling patterns by difficulty level rather than by sounds they reinforce. The workaround is straightforward. Start with the sound-spelling correspondence list from your chosen program, then cross-reference it against your state's ELA standards. The overlap will show you where your curriculum is strong and where it has gaps, usually around vowel teams and r-controlled vowels. Once you find those gaps, you add targeted mini-lessons from a supplemental resource instead of trying to restructure your whole pacing guide.

There was also a notable discussion about decodable books and how many schools are using them incorrectly. The problem is not the books themselves, it is the sequencing. Decodables should match the phonics skills you have explicitly taught in that week, not the skills your student "should know" based on grade level. I have seen third-grade teachers hand out texts with vowel digraphs when they had not yet taught them, which defeats the purpose entirely. The fix is to keep a simple tracking sheet where you mark the target skill and the skills already introduced, then pull decodables from that narrowed set. Another thing people tend to miss is the difference between phonemic awareness instruction and phonics instruction. The conference speakers kept referring to them separately, but many educators still blend them in the same activity without making the distinction clear to students. Phonemic awareness is oral only. Phonics connects sounds to letters. If you are doing ear-to-mouth sound blending before introducing the letter symbols, that is phonemic awareness. The moment you add the written letters, you are in phonics territory. Mixing them without that clarity creates confusion, especially for students who are already struggling. The vendor fair had several structured literacy programs on display, including resources tied to SPIRE, Fundations, and Heggerty. Nothing was free, obviously, but a lot of the representatives gave detailed curriculum maps that were useful even if you ended up buying something else. I recommend taking photos of any scope-and-sequence handouts because the digital copies are rarely posted afterward.

One session that drew a bigger crowd than expected was on parent communication during the transition to a new reading approach. Parents who grew up with whole language instruction often push back hard when they see their kids sounding out words instead of guessing from context. The presenters offered a script for parent meetings that focused on what the research shows about long-term reading outcomes, not on criticizing the old method. It was practical, though it did not help with parents who are already committed to a specific alternative approach for philosophical reasons. The conference did not have a recorded presentation archive at the time, which is a real limitation. If you missed a session, there was no way to go back and watch it unless a presenter independently shared their slides somewhere, which some did on social media. Going forward, I would suggest asking the organizers about a recording policy before committing to attend in person, or planning to sit close to the front so your notes are usable if you need to review them later. If you are considering attending a future Show Me Science of Reading event, the main benefit is the networking with people in your region who are dealing with the same curriculum transition problems. The content is solid but not groundbreaking if you have already read a significant amount of the research literature. The real value is in the hallway conversations and the shared problem-solving that happens between sessions. That is where you get answers to the specific questions that do not fit neatly into a prepared presentation.

The cost was reasonable compared to national conferences, and travel was the bigger expense for anyone outside the immediate area. If your district pays for professional development travel, you can usually get the registration fee approved as a standalone item. A few districts in the region have started organizing carpool groups to cut costs, which is something you can ask about on local Facebook teacher groups or the SOR mailing list before the conference opens registration.