VIRTUAL EVENT: Learning to talk, talking to learn: Reading Recovery national conference

Through language we represent our ideas and our knowledge, we negotiate our place in contexts and express our hopes and feelings, we refine and test what we understand in connection with others.

Language has many dimensions which interact with reading and writing including meaning, vocabulary, structural conventions, phonology and pragmatics. We express our ideas and receive and respond to the ideas of others though language - it's not surprising that language development is so influential on literacy development.  

With reduced time in class with teachers and peers and more time online or engaged in remote learning, how much we talk and the ways in which we talk to learn has come into sharper focus. As part of the conference we will be considering how we might get purposeful talk in remote learning designs and also what thinking might be helpful as schools reopen/get back to normal. 

This conference explores key themes in language development and literacy development, instructional practices which support children in learning to talk, listen, read and write and the role that talk plays in learning through meaningful interactions with adults and peers.     

This conference is for Reading Recovery professionals, classroom teachers, literacy coordinators, Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENDCos), school leaders, literacy consultants, and student teachers. 

Priority booking will be open to Reading Recovery professionals. 

Programme

The conference will be conducted online and accessible for a week with synchronous/live sessions on 23 April 2021.

There will be two main strands in the conference workshops – one focused mainly for Reading Recovery professionals and one for teachers and leaders working in wider literacy context.  

As well as a choice of one specialist session with a mix of synchronous/live and asynchronous activity, the conference programme will include pre-recorded keynotes, and curated menu of recorded sessions.  

There will also be a commercial/publisher spaces and social spaces to meet other participants for conversation. 

Keynotes

• Beccy Earnshaw, the Director of Voice21 - a charity doing pioneering and transformational work in oracy education.
• Alan Durant, Children’s author and poet.

Links 

• More info: Reading Recovery national conference
• Reading Recovery
• The International Literacy Centre
• The Department of Learning and Leadership

Image: Sarah-Jane Gregori for UCL Institute of Education