NM PED 2026 Literacy and Humanities Summer Conference

Fluency is more than a technical skill, it is a pathway to empowerment, resilience, and hope for our older striving readers. In this session, we explore fluency’s role in adolescent literacy development and its critical impact on overall student learning.

Through evidence-based practices and collaborative planning, educators will reimagine fluency instruction as a means of fostering engagement, success, and lifelong literacy. Participants will examine how to move beyond simple speed-drills toward meaningful, prosodic reading that supports deep comprehension. You will leave with practical tools to integrate fluency support into the secondary classroom, ensuring that older readers gain the confidence and automaticity needed to tackle complex, grade-level texts.

Substantial attention has been placed on supporting foundational reading and writing skills in the early grades, but many students still reach fourth grade and above without these skills securely in place. In this session, you will explore how to engage older striving readers in instruction that builds student efficacy, motivation, and a sense of self as competent and capable readers.

Student Achievement Partners will share the research and evidence base that defines efficacy and joy in literacy instruction. You will highlight specific, research-based instructional routines that can be implemented in any class to ensure that all students, especially those with gaps in their foundational skills, build their competence and confidence. You will leave with practical strategies to foster an environment where students feel successful and empowered, ensuring that foundational support feels age-appropriate, respectful, and highly effective.

Comprehension is often overemphasized as a skill that can be both isolated and taught; however, it is actually the ultimate goal of all reading instruction. To provide effective support, we must change our mindset around what comprehension is, why it is both a skill and an outcome, and how to help students build a true understanding of text.

In this session, Student Achievement Partners will review key research that defines the nature of comprehension and explains why instruction is most effective when centered on complex text. You will explore how to shift your practices to ensure that every student has the necessary support to comprehend any text they encounter. By the end of the session, you will leave with a fresh perspective and a set of research-based strategies to move beyond surface-level skill work toward deep, meaningful literacy achievement for all learners.