Reading Reform Foundation Holds 21st Annual Conference

Inside the New York Hilton and Towers recently, 600 teachers gave up the Sunday of a three-day weekend to attend the twenty-first annual conference of Reading Reform Foundation entitled, “Effective Techniques for Teaching Reading, Writing & Spelling.” Sixteen speakers, who conducted twenty-four educational workshops, also gave up their day and donated their time to provide teachers and administrators with new information and ideas.

Linnea C. Ehri, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology, Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and Judith C. Hochman, Ed.D., Program Consultant, Windward Teacher Training Institute, White Plains, New York, delivered inspiring keynote speeches. Dr. Ehri’s overview of recent research findings indicated strongly that phonetic methods are the most effective strategies for teaching reading and writing. Dr. Hochman stated the perils of ignoring such research. The audience responded to her impassioned call for a multisensory approach to teaching reading, writing and spelling with a standing ovation.

A highly successful seminar was conducted for administrators, thirty-two principals, assistant principals and school district staff members. Several principals praised Reading Reform Foundation’s courses and twice-weekly in-classroom mentoring for public elementary school teachers in the teaching of reading, writing and spelling through multisensory instruction.

Professor Margaret Jo Shepherd (professor emeritus at Teachers College) described Young Readers at Risk, a professional development program for certified K-2 classroom teachers working with urban children, at Fordham University’s Graduate School of Education and the Hello Friend/Ennis William Cosby Foundation. Administrators encouraged Reading Reform Foundation to reach out further to the supervisory and administrative community and offered to help.

Gloria Schwartz, an outstanding community leader who is director of the Harbor Literacy Center, received the Leona D. Spector and Dr. Philip J. Spector Award, named for the Reading Reform Foundation conference organizers for the last twenty years.

The day motivated participants to bring new information and energy to their schools. One teacher said, “All these workshops were fabulous: no-nonsense approaches that will work. I am ready to try some of these approaches now.”#

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