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Closing the Fluency Gap Series – Part 1: What the Science of Learning Says

Thursday, April 4, 2024 @ 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm EDT

Closing the Fluency Gap

Presented by Jennifer Flieder, Reading Interventionist, Roosevelt Creative Corridor Business Academy (IA); and Carolyn Brown, Ph.D., Chief Academic Officer and Co-Founder, Foundations in Learning
Moderated by Allison Zimmermann, President and CEO, Foundations in Learning

Sponsored by WordFlight, a Foundations in Learning Solution

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Learn more about viewing the live presentation and the recording, earning your CE certificate, and using our new accessibility features.

It’s estimated that two-thirds of students in the U.S. are struggling with fluency as a result of insufficient foundational skills. Typically, fluency has been addressed by defining, assessing, and intervening on decoding accuracy, automatic word recognition, and reading text with expression. However, to solve the fluency gap, we must go beyond this approach to better understand the learning processes that enable students to learn, retain, and connect these components.

This edWebinar examines fluency from the perspective of the learning process. Learning science provides decades of research on fluency development from many domains. These findings provide critical insights that can be applied to reading, providing a more effective way to help struggling readers develop the knowledge and skills required for reading fluency.

In this edWebinar, you learn how to support the emergence of fluency, link the components of fluency, and learn how automatic word recognition develops and why it is so important to fluency. Join us as we share and answer the following questions:

  • Why do we need to get beyond outcome fluency measures of rate, accuracy, and prosody?
  • How do we do that?
  • How do we support your students with fluency gaps?
  • How does the science of complex skill development provide insights to solutions?
  • What innovative solutions are being driven by current research?

This recorded edWebinar is of interest to elementary and middle school teachers, reading coaches, literacy coaches, and school and district leaders.

Closing the Fluency Gap Series – Part 2: Building the Foundations for Fluency and for Deep Reading

Jennifer Flieder

About the Presenters

Jennifer Flieder is currently a Reading Interventionist at Roosevelt Creative Corridor Business Academy (middle school) in the Cedar Rapids Community School District, in Cedar Rapids, IA. Jennifer has taught language arts in the Cedar Rapids area for 34 years.

Carolyn Brown

Dr. Carolyn Brown has devoted her career to developing tools and testing solutions that optimize language and literacy development for all students. She and her colleagues have received support from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, and the State of Iowa. Dr. Brown received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in speech pathology and audiology from Eastern New Mexico University and her Ph.D. in the same field at University of Iowa. Her areas of specialization are child development, language acquisition, and the Science of Reading.

She and her husband, Dr. Jerry Zimmermann, have co-founded three companies: Breakthrough to Literacy, the Iowa Language and Literacy Institute, and Foundations in Learning. Each was organized to advance current science and create solutions to help all children learn to read. She is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Iowa.

Allison Zimmermann

About the Moderator

Before taking the helm as CEO, Allison Zimmermann previously served as the Chief Strategy Officer for Foundations in Learning. She brings over 15 years of experience working in the education sector creating equity and opportunity for students. She has worked as a teacher, administrator, and consultant, providing strategic support to schools, non-profits, start-ups, and Fortune 500 companies across the country.

Previously, Allison launched NewView, a non-profit focused on creating tri-sector solutions for society’s largest challenges. She continues to serve on the board of the organization. Allison began her career as a special education middle school teacher in New York City and a Teach For America Corps member. Allison graduated from Boston University with a B.S. in international relations and political science. She received an M.S.Ed. in middle school general and special education from Bank Street College and M.P.P. and M.B.A. degrees from the University of Michigan.

Join the Empowering Struggling Readers community to network with educators, participate in online discussions, receive invitations to upcoming edWebinars, and view recordings of previous programs to earn CE certificates.

Learn more about viewing the live presentation and the recording, earning your CE certificate, and using our new accessibility features.


WordFlightWordFlight is the labor of love from a group of dedicated reading researchers, authors, and cognitive scientists who want to help more students learn to read. WordFlight is Foundations in Learning’s flagship offering.


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