NM PED 2026 Literacy and Humanities Summer Conference

As schools shift toward evidence-based literacy instruction, you are likely balancing high expectations with an already full plate. Meaningful improvements do not come from adding more to your workload; they come from identifying what you can remove to make space for practices that truly support student learning.

In this session, you will learn how to intentionally let go of routines, materials, or programs that aren't supported by research or data. Using the analogy of "pulling weeds and planting flowers," you will explore how clearing away less effective practices allows evidence-based instruction to take root and thrive in your classroom. Together, we will reflect on what is working, what may be crowding your "garden," and how to use student data to guide your next steps. You will leave with practical strategies based on implementation science and reflective tools to help you focus instruction, strengthen classroom practices, and improve student outcomes.h.

If you are ready to rediscover the joy of writing and make daily practice feel meaningful and manageable, this session is for you. In this session, you will explore practical and easy-to-use writing strategies designed to make writing across the curriculum clear, consistent, and meaningful in every subject area.

You will learn about a specific framework that aligns naturally with DOK levels, supports deeper comprehension, and elevates journal writing so it becomes a powerful part of learning rather than a task students rush through. This system is designed to be set up once and used all year long to provide you with a dependable structure from start to finish. You will also discover how this strategy makes it simple to pull small guided writing groups, target specific skills, and gather quick, authentic formative assessments that help you adjust instruction with confidence. You will leave with a writing tool that strengthens literacy, boosts student thinking, and makes daily writing a natural and joyful part of your classroom all year long.

You can empower your students’ academic language development by using morphology to support skilled reading comprehension. Vocabulary depth, breadth, and precision are essential components of the language strand in the Reading Rope, and in this session, you will learn to apply structural analysis using common affixes and Greek and Latin bases to expand student vocabulary.

You will explore how explicit and systematic instruction of morphemes enables students to accurately and automatically analyze academic vocabulary in grade-level texts. To help students prepare for sophisticated reading and standardized assessments, you will focus on the three layers of the English language: Anglo-Saxon, Latin, and Greek. The session emphasizes the use of semantic clusters, which are groups of words that share a common base or characteristic. As your students progress to upper grades and encounter increasingly complex multisyllabic words, you will be equipped with the tools to teach them how every word part aids in analysis, comprehension, and spelling.

Successful structured literacy implementation requires more than adding evidence-aligned practices; it demands the intentional removal of practices that dilute clarity and coherence. In this interactive session, you will examine de-implementation as a core leadership responsibility within your Science of Reading initiatives. As a district or building leader, you will explore how to identify misaligned literacy practices and anticipate the adaptive resistance that often accompanies change.

Through guided reflection and the use of practical planning tools, you will develop a strategic phase-out plan aligned to your district’s specific priorities. You will leave with actionable tools and the precise language needed to reduce initiative overload, strengthen system coherence, and create the necessary conditions for structured literacy to thrive. By focusing on streamlining your instructional efforts, you will gain the ability to protect your staff's time and ensure that your literacy goals lead to lasting student success.

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.

Discover how explicit instruction, as championed by Anita Archer, can transform vocabulary learning in any classroom. This session provides teachers with research-backed strategies for teaching words with clarity, structure, and repeated practice, ensuring students understand, retain, and apply new vocabulary.

Grounded in John Hattie’s Visible Learning research, participants will explore instructional practices with high effect sizes, including modeling, guided practice, scaffolding, and activating prior knowledge before introducing new words. During this interactive session, teachers will learn how to:

Identify and prioritize high-impact vocabulary for instruction.

Activate students’ prior knowledge and build background to support comprehension.

Incorporate multiple exposures and active student responses to ensure retention.

Whether you teach elementary, middle, or high school, this session equips educators to accelerate learning, close achievement gaps, and make vocabulary instruction measurable, visible, and impactful.

In this session, you will learn how to develop a "What I Need" (WIN) model that fits the specific needs of your students through the effective triangulation of data. You will move beyond simple test scores to look at how multiple data points inform a comprehensive view of student growth and instructional needs.

You will work with a model of the Multi-Layered System of Support (MLSS) framework to develop or refine a personalized structure for your own school or classroom. By working collaboratively with your peers and the presenter, you will identify how to schedule, group, and track interventions that actually work. You will leave with a clear, actionable plan for your MLSS framework, ensuring that your intervention time is purposeful, data-driven, and designed to close achievement gaps for every student.