NM PED 2026 Literacy and Humanities Summer Conference

Strong literacy leadership is the foundation for academic success at the secondary level. In this dynamic workshop, you will explore the critical role of leaders in shaping school-wide literacy initiatives, fostering collaboration among educators, and supporting diverse student needs. You will dive into key focus areas, including building influence, leading intentionally, strategic planning, and modeling professional growth.

You will leave with practical tools to lead literacy initiatives with purpose, allowing you to elevate instructional practices and empower students to achieve their highest potential. Whether you are managing a department or leading an entire building, this session provides the framework needed to inspire your staff and create a sustainable culture of literacy. You will gain the clarity and confidence to drive meaningful change that directly impacts student outcomes across all content areas

Explicit vocabulary instruction is critical for your secondary students to access complex texts, express ideas effectively, and succeed across all disciplines. In this session, you will examine how AI-powered tools can enhance your vocabulary instruction by facilitating high-impact word selection, offering adaptive learning experiences, and strengthening the language networks of the reading brain.

You will explore research-based strategies for direct vocabulary instruction, including how to select and teach high-utility words, integrate structured routines, and foster word consciousness in your classroom. Through practical examples and interactive discussions, you will learn how to integrate AI tools to deepen student comprehension and build robust academic language networks. You will leave with actionable strategies to create a language-rich environment that accelerates literacy development for all your secondary students, ensuring they have the linguistic tools necessary for academic success.

What does current research say about the literacy instructional needs of older students, including English language learners and students with disabilities? In this session, you will discover that while there is no one-size-fits-all approach, specific research findings can be integrated with your local context to drive student success.

You will explore how to combine individual study findings with your own student data and unique school structures to prioritize the practices that truly matter for literacy achievement. By examining the instructional needs of diverse adolescent learners through a research-based lens, you will gain a clearer understanding of how to focus your efforts. You will leave with a framework for making informed, high-impact instructional decisions that support the literacy growth of every student in your secondary classroom.

What happens when your learners encounter texts that pull them in emotionally, intellectually, and physically? In this interactive workshop, you will experience an immersive, text-rich exploration of nuclear procurement in Indian Country, feeling firsthand how a compelling topic and carefully curated text set can activate deep engagement.

Following this experience, you will begin developing your own compelling topics and accompanying text sets for use at your local site. Finally, using the Indigenous Critical Curriculum Framework, you will examine your emerging plans for curriculum violence by asking not just if the work is engaging, but who the curriculum serves and who it might harm. You will leave with a compelling topic in progress and a critical lens to carry forward into all your future instructional design.

In this session, you will explore practical strategies for strengthening student comprehension by harnessing the power of grammatical building blocks and syntactic awareness. You will learn how a function-first approach to grammar instruction can directly support meaning-making, helping students see how sentences are built to convey specific ideas.

Using free Reading Universe resources, including video demonstrations and ready-to-use instructional materials, you will build practical knowledge and skills for teaching syntax in ways that are immediately applicable to your classroom. You will discover how intentional instruction in grammar and sentence structure can transform a reader's ability to navigate and understand complex text. You will leave with a toolkit of routines that turn grammar from a dry subject into a dynamic key for unlocking deep comprehension.

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.

New Mexico’s MLSS framework makes one truth unavoidable: if Layer 1 instruction is weak, every other layer becomes remediation instead of opportunity. In a post–Yazzie/Martinez landscape, the state has affirmed that students are entitled to culturally and linguistically responsive, grade-level instruction. Layer 1 is where that promise lives or fails. In this session, you will focus on two critical design decisions: intentional text selection and grade-appropriate assignments that preserve cognitive demand.

You will examine how to select texts that reflect New Mexico communities, land, and languages while aligning to NMPED standards and supporting multilingual learners. You will also analyze common Layer 1 pitfalls, such as over-scaffolded texts and low-level tasks that unintentionally track students. Using New Mexico-centered examples, including land-based literature and borderlands narratives, you will practice redesigning assignments to increase cognitive demand while maintaining accessibility. This session positions Layer 1 as enrichment-first design, helping you raise both the floor and the ceiling in your classroom. You will leave with planning protocols, assignment redesign templates, and New Mexico-aligned examples ready for immediate implementation.