Webinars and Events

The Ohio Middle Level Association is proud to host the 2025 annual state conference at the Kalahari Resort and Conference Center in Sandusky, Ohio.

Conclude the series with a focus on assessing writing proficiency and using data to drive improvement. Discover methods for evaluating student writing, providing constructive feedback, and using assessment results to inform instructional practices. Learn how to set writing goals, track progress, and implement strategies for continuous improvement in writing skills.

Learning to write is learning to think, so explicitly teaching the writing process empowers both teachers and students in an era increasingly influenced by AI. While technology offers valuable resources for writing instruction, it is essential to approach these tools through a technoskeptical stance for engaging in critical thinking and making informed choices about technology (Pleasants, Krutka, & Nichols, 2023). Educators can help students build strong critical thinking skills, enabling them to organize and communicate their ideas effectively and clearly, which is crucial in distinguishing their unique voices amidst the noise of AI-generated content. This approach not only fosters confidence but also encourages students to engage as active members of a writing community, preparing them to navigate the complexities of an AI-driven landscape.

Effective writing instruction is pivotal for developing students' writing skills and fostering their overall literacy. This webinar will explore foundational writing principles, including the writing process, effective feedback techniques, and strategies for creating a supportive community of writers. Additionally, discover how to address sentence processing and its significant impact on both writing ability and reading comprehension. Participants will understand the importance of teaching writing as a critical thinking act that empowers students to organize and communicate their ideas clearly, ultimately enhancing their engagement and confidence as writers.

Once secondary students have mastered foundational reading skills, it is important to focus on supporting students in developing advanced literacy skills related to both content and disciplinary literacy that are critical for high school and college success. This webinar is designed to help educators prepare students for college readiness and academic success by equipping them with the advanced skills needed to excel in higher education. Leave the session with effective strategies for fostering these crucial skills and ensuring students are well-prepared for academic success.

Adolescent readers face significant challenges in becoming proficient in the literacy skills necessary for success in content-area classes. With 71% of eighth graders reading below proficiency according to the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP; U.S. Department of Education, 2022), targeted interventions are essential. Many students struggle with foundational skills such as phonics, morphology, and reading fluency, which can affect their overall comprehension (Leach, Scarborough, & Rescorla, 2003). Addressing these issues effectively requires a focus on word-level reading to improve reading proficiency. To ensure that these interventions are effective, progress monitoring plays a crucial role. Progress monitoring is a key component of any Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) strategy, providing tools to measure students' reading performance, track improvement rates toward goals, and assess responses to instruction.

Existing literature on Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) predominantly addresses its implementation in elementary schools, leaving a noticeable gap in resources that discuss the unique challenges of applying MTSS in secondary schools. This webinar will provide practical strategies for integrating evidence-based reading practices into secondary schools, setting up robust screening systems, using assessment data to inform reading instruction, and monitoring progress to ensure student success.

The Science of Reading continues to permeate the education world. Most of the conversations relate to foundational reading skills in the primary grades; however, the Science of Reading is not only for primary grades. In fact, the research-base provides evidence-based practices that support readers well beyond primary grades into middle school where readers confront increasingly complex disciplinary texts. It is in these upper grades where teachers can rely on the research base to better inform high-quality reading instruction.

In this webinar, we will present ways middle school teachers can build on the foundational reading skills that are developed in the primary grades. A reading researcher who is a former middle school reading interventionist will share the research and provide tangible methods that support middle school readers’ achievement in reading complex texts.

The Science of Reading framework has recently gained popularity as a result of state reforms of reading instruction. In the process, the framework has been unfortunately mis-characterized as phonics-based reading instruction in K-3. In reality, however, the Science of Reading framework involves a lot more than simply knowing the letter-to-sound correspondence, and is relevant to reading in K-12 and beyond.

The Science of Reading framework is a vast, interdisciplinary body of scientifically based research about reading and issues related to reading and writing that has been developed over the past five decades by scholars from cognitive psychology, education, special education, linguistics, and neuroscience, among others.

The Science of Reading research informs how proficient reading and writing develop, why some individuals have difficulty, and how to effectively assess and teach reading and writing. Importantly, the Science of Reading has helped educators understand the cognitive processes that lead to reading proficiency while debunking various methods, such as the three cueing system, that are not scientifically grounded.

It seems like every reading assessment you look at today is deemed to be diagnostic. But, what does diagnostic mean? And, what should we look for when selecting a diagnostic reading assessment. In this webinar, we will discuss the characteristics that a diagnostic reading assessment should have. You will leave the webinar with the knowledge and tools you need to make decisions when selecting a diagnostic reading assessment that best fits your needs.

As the Science of Reading continues to inform educational practices, it is important to understand what the science says about foundational reading skills. Automatic word recognition and effective decoding skills are critical skills that lead to good comprehension. While phonics is a first step in “breaking the code,” older students require more advanced word analysis skills to be able to break apart multisyllabic words. They also require instruction that fosters automatic word recognition of academic words. Building automatic word recognition leads to comprehension as readers learn to make sense of the text.

In this webinar, hear from a researcher and 5th grade teacher on how to center instruction on word recognition and decoding practices that lead to successful reading comprehension. Transform your instructional approaches to teach word analysis skills that support older readers in being able to decode academic, multisyllabic words. Presenters will share the transformative impact of having a diagnostic assessment that measures older students’ word recognition and decoding skills.

As the Science of Reading continues to be the focus of educational reforms, it is important to understand what the science says about foundational reading skills beyond phonics. Fluency is a critical skill that leads to good comprehension. This is because fluent reading assumes that readers are able to read with accuracy and at a rate that supports comprehension. A fluent reader automatically recognizes most words on the page and does not have to devote time to sounding out individual words. This ability leads to comprehension as readers learn to make sense of the text at the phrasal level—where comprehension lives. Providing students with opportunities to build both their oral and silent fluency is critical to long-term reading success.

In this webinar, hear from a reading researcher how to center instruction on fluency practices that lead to comprehension. Transform your instructional approaches to teaching fluency to include engaging and motivating practices that build fluency. Presenters will share the transformative impact of having a diagnostic assessment that measures silent reading fluency

As the Science of Reading continues to inform educational practices, it is important to understand what the science says about foundational reading skills. Sentence level processing skills are critical for skilled comprehension. While comprehension is often focused on at the passage level, comprehension is built at the phrasal and sentence level. Older students require support in making sense of the relationships either explicitly or implicitly marked in sentences.

In this webinar, learn how to center instruction on sentence-level processing skills that lead to successful reading comprehension. Transform your instructional approaches to support older readers in being able to make sense of phrasal and sentence level relationships. You will hear about the transformative impact of having a diagnostic assessment that measures older students’ sentence processing skills.

As the Science of Reading permeates education and politics, it is imperative to expand our understanding of what the science says beyond phonics. One aspect of the research that is clear is the need for word analysis instruction that builds word knowledge. This is especially important given that word knowledge highly impacts reading comprehension. Providing students with robust word analysis instruction that fosters both word and morpheme knowledge leads to success as students strengthen their understanding of language and make connections across words and concepts independently.

In this webinar, hear from a reading researcher how to center instruction on word analysis using practices that foster word consciousness. Transform your instructional approaches to teaching vocabulary and morphology to include general academic words and morphological aspects of words. Presenters will share the transformative impact of having a diagnostic assessment that measures vocabulary and morphology.