NM PED 2026 Literacy and Humanities Summer Conference

Only 27% of students in the United States perform at or above proficiency in writing. The gaps along lines of race, income, disability status, and English learner status are significant, persistent, and largely ignored. This session makes the case that explicit, systematic foundational instruction is more than just good pedagogy; it is the equity intervention that writing education has been missing.

In this session, you will examine who implicit writing instruction fails and why. You will then build a practical toolkit focused on transcription automaticity and sentence-level instruction, giving every student in your classroom genuine access to composition. You will leave with the strategies necessary to bridge proficiency gaps and ensure that foundational writing skills become a gateway to student voice and success rather than a barrier.