49th Annual Spring Symposium
Presented by the International Dyslexia Association – Oregon Branch
Instruction to Support Word-Level Reading Skills for Students in the Intermediate Grades
Presented by Dr. Jessica Toste, Ph.D.
Saturday – March 1, 2025
The University of Portland, Bauccio Commons
8:00 am-3:30 pm Pacific Time (Light Breakfast and Lunch included)
♦ Session Description:
As students move into the upper elementary grades, they face a greater amount of text with more complex words, yet many lack a systematic approach for decoding these words. These reading demands continue to increase dramatically as students transition from middle to high school and, at the same time, formal literacy instruction largely disappears (Kamil et al., 2008). Students with dyslexia, even those who have attained foundational reading skills, often experience substantial difficulty with multisyllabic words. In this session, Dr. Toste will provide an overview of processes involved in multisyllabic word reading and instructional routines to support students’ acquisition of word-level reading skills. She will describe theresearch-based instructional practices that comprise the Word Connections program, a targeted reading intervention program focused on multisyllabic word reading fluency. Several experimental studies of the Word Connections program have been conducted and students who participated in the intervention showed greater gains in word reading skills. Dr. Toste will demonstrate the instructional routines used for each of the seven components of Word Connections and discuss considerations for effective implementation.
♦ Learning Objectives:
After participating in this session, participants will be able to:
About Dr. Jessica Toste:Jessica R. Toste is an Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education at The University of Texas at Austin. She holds research affiliations with the Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk and Texas Center for Equity Promotion; and is a fellow with the Research Institute for Implementation Science in Education (RIISE). Her research is focused on methods for intensifying intervention for students with persistent reading challenges and reading disabilities, and she is principal investigator on research grants from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She is the Editor-in-Chief of The Reading League Journal (TRLJ), an associate editor for the Journal of Learning Disabilities, President of CEC’s Division for Research, and Past President of CEC’s Division for Learning Disabilities. Dr. Toste is an award-winning teacher; she was the recipient of the 2023 President’s Associates Graduate Teaching Excellence Award, 2022 Dean’s Distinguished Teaching Award, and was named one of the 2017 “Texas 10” professors at UT Austin. You can find her online at jessicatoste.com, as well as Instagram (instagram.com/tosteteam) and YouTube (youtube.com/@TosteTeam).
♦ Washington Teachers: IDA-Oregon is an approved Clock Hour Provider
Scholarships Available! Deadline Feb 10, 2025
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Venue sponsored by University of Portland
Interested in being a Sponsor or Exhibitor? Click here.
Thank you to our Sponsors!
Calling All Exhibitors!
IDA Oregon would like to invite you to become a sponsor or exhibitor at our upcoming International Dyslexia Association – Oregon Branch’s Annual Spring Symposium.
Attendees are educators from across Oregon and SW Washington who are deeply committed to helping young people, particularly young people with dyslexia, read. We thank you for your support.
There are three levels of sponsorship. The benefits associated are listed below:
Supporter/Exhibitor at $150
- One 8-foot banquet table
- Lunch for your organization representative and one reduced-price conference registration
- Your logo on the event program and other appropriate event collateral
Table Sponsor at $250
- One 8-foot banquet table
- Lunch for your organization representative, one conference registration and an additional registration at a reduced price
- Your logo on the event program and other appropriate event collateral
- One social media spotlight
Community Sponsor at $500
- One 8-foot banquet table
- Lunch for up to 2 organization representatives, one conference registration and an additional registration at a reduced price
- Your logo on the event program and other appropriate event collateral
- Three social media spotlights
- Opportunity to speak (2-3 min.) to all attendees from the podium
- Opportunity to provide information in each person’s take-home bag
To sign up, please complete this Google form Or email president@orbida.org for more information.
Please email your logo to president@orbida.org. If we used your logo last year, and you would like us to use the same one, you may note that on the Google form.
We look forward to seeing you at our Symposium!
DISCLAIMER: The International Dyslexia Association (IDA) – Oregon Branch is pleased to present a forum for information to benefit its constituents. It is IDA’s policy to not recommend or endorse any specific program, product, institution, company, or instructional material, noting that there are a number of such that present the critical components of instruction as defined by IDA’s Knowledge and Practice Standards for Teachers of Reading. Any program, product, institution, company, or instructional material carrying the IDA Accredited seal meets the IDA Standards. Advertisements or products in this, or any other conference-related material, do not necessarily reflect the views of IDA or its branches.
