NM PED 2026 Literacy and Humanities Summer Conference

In this session, you will explore practical, evidence-based practices that ensure all students successfully access and learn from grade-level text. You will learn how to plan effective scaffolds that maintain appropriate rigor while challenging your students and encouraging meaningful growth.

The session highlights a versatile array of before, during, and after reading strategies that promote active engagement, deepen comprehension, and increase student learning. You will also explore how to adapt these research-based strategies to meet both individual and classwide needs, helping you ensure all students progress toward and achieve the established literacy standards for their grade level. You will leave with a robust toolkit of adaptable routines that allow you to support diverse learners without lowering the bar for excellence.

TBA

Presented by Dr. Linda Cavazos and Severo Martinez, this session explores the impact of the Structured Literacy Initiative on student achievement in New Mexico since 2022. You will examine the evidence demonstrating how systematic, explicit instruction has successfully improved reading proficiency for all students across the state.

During the session, you will look closely at data and outcomes with a particular focus on English Learners across all instructional settings. You will discover how the initiative’s frameworks have shifted the landscape of literacy in New Mexico and what these results mean for your own classroom or district. You will leave with a deeper understanding of the evidence base supporting structured literacy and a clear view of how these state-wide efforts are effectively closing achievement gaps and fostering long-term reading success.

In this session, you will take a lively and accessible dive into adolescent brain development using insights from medical doctors, psychologists, neuroscientists, and social scientists. Together, you will unpack why teenagers think, decide, and behave the way they do. More importantly, you will discover how this understanding can make classroom management and instruction feel less like a battle and more like a true partnership.

You can expect an energetic and hands-on experience with group conversations, storytelling, movement breaks, and music woven throughout the session. Because the session focuses on how the adolescent brain works, you will learn through the very methods that match how that brain learns best. You will leave with a new perspective on your students and a toolkit of practical strategies to foster a more connected, productive, and calm classroom environment.

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.