49th Annual Spring Symposium with Jessica Toste, Ph.D. – Portland, OR

Instruction to Support Word-Level Reading Skills for Students in the Intermediate Grades

Appropriate for grades two and up.

Presented by Dr. Jessica Toste, Ph.D.

March 1, 2025

The University of Portland, Bauccio Commons

8:00 am-3:30 pm Pacific Time (Light Breakfast and Lunch included)

Session Description:

As students move into the upper elementary grades, they face a greater amount of text with more complex words, yet many lack a systematic approach for decoding these words. These reading demands continue to increase dramatically as students transition from middle to high school and, at the same time, formal literacy instruction largely disappears (Kamil et al., 2008). Students with dyslexia, even those who have attained foundational reading skills, often experience substantial difficulty with multisyllabic words. In this session, Dr. Toste will provide an overview of processes involved in multisyllabic word reading and instructional routines to support students’ acquisition of word-level reading skills. She will describe the research-based instructional practices that comprise the Word Connections program, a targeted reading intervention program focused on multisyllabic word reading fluency. Several experimental studies of the Word Connections program have been conducted and students who participated in the intervention showed greater gains in word reading skills. Dr. Toste will demonstrate the instructional routines used for each of the seven components of Word Connections and discuss considerations for effective implementation.

Learning Objectives:

After participating in this session, participants will be able to:

1. Describe the challenges associated with reading multisyllabic words

2. Communicate effectively about research-based practices in word-level reading instruction

1. Describe the components of the Word Connections program
2. Use the teacher manual to guide implementation of the Word Connections program
3. Draw from multiple resources to facilitate delivery of interventions that effectively support advanced word-level reading skills for students in the intermediate grades

About Dr. Jessica Toste:

Jessica R. Toste is an Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education at The University of Texas (UT) at Austin. She holds research affiliations with the Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk and Texas Center for Equity Promotion; and is a fellow with the IES-funded Research Institute for Implementation Science in Education (RIISE). Her research is focused on methods for intensifying intervention for students with persistent reading challenges and reading disabilities, and she is principal investigator on research grants from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She is associate editor for the Journal of Learning Disabilities, Past President of CEC’s Division for Learning Disabilities, and President-Elect for CEC’s Division for Research. Dr. Toste is an award-winning teacher; she was the recipient of a 2023 President’s Associates Graduate Teaching Excellence Award, 2022 Dean’s Distinguished Teaching Award, and was named one of the 2017 “Texas 10” professors at UT Austin.

Click Here for Scholarships: deadline February 10th, 2025.

Not a member? Click here to Join IDA, we’d love to have you (big discounts for members!)

Attendees will earn 6 KPS-Aligned PD Hours for maintaining their CEUs for The Center for Effective Reading Instruction. CERI requires educators to complete 10 clock hours of continuing education or 1.0 CEU’s annually to support certification renewal.

Washington Teachers: IDA-Oregon is an approved Clock Hour Provider

Interested in being a Sponsor or Exhibitor? Click here.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

DISCLAIMER: The International Dyslexia Association (IDA) – Oregon Branch is pleased to present a forum for information to benefit its constituents. It is IDA’s policy to not recommend or endorse any specific program, product, institution, company, or instructional material, noting that there are a number of such that present the critical components of instruction as defined by IDA’s Knowledge and Practice Standards for Teachers of Reading. Any program, product, institution, company, or instructional material carrying the IDA Accredited seal meets the IDA Standards. Advertisements or products in this, or any other conference-related material, do not necessarily reflect the views of IDA or its branches.