Presented by Kareem Weaver, Co-Founder and Executive Director, FULCRUM; Dr. Liz Brooke, Chief Learning Officer, Lexia Learning; and Andrea Setmeyer, National Chapter Coordinator of The Reading League
Moderated by Cassandra Wheeler, Senior Manager of LETRS State Success, Lexia Learning

Sponsored by Lexia Learning as part of Science of Reading Week April 24-28. Learn more.

Watch the Recording Listen to the Podcast

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

We know not every student in the U.S. learns to read in school, despite the efforts of educators. This is a solvable problem, and one that education activist Kareem Weaver seeks to solve in the new documentary, The Right to Read, produced by LeVar Burton.

Watch this edWebinar with Kareem Weaver, Dr. Liz Brooke, and Andrea Setmeyer for a conversation and Q&A session on The Right to Read, a documentary film on the state of literacy in our country, and what we can all do to help our students achieve reading success.

Viewers have the opportunity to watch this limited-release documentary between April 24 – 30th and hear directly from Kareem about his experience creating the documentary, what he learned, and what we can all do to help our students succeed.

This recorded edWebinar is of interest to PreK-12 teachers, librarians, school and district leaders, and education technology leaders.

This edWebinar is part of Science of Reading Week.

This five-day event, April 24th – 28th, is your front row seat to learn from the brightest minds in the national literacy conversation and your key to unlocking literacy learning for every student. Join us for the week to unpack the science and ensure your students learn to read, write, and speak with confidence.

About the Presenters

Kareem Weaver is a co-founder and Executive Director of FULCRUM, which partners with stakeholders to improve reading results for students. He is the Oakland NAACP’s second Vice President and Chair of its Education Committee; his advocacy is featured in the upcoming film The Right to Read. Kareem previously served as New Leaders’ Executive Director of the Western Region and was an award-winning teacher and administrator. He has undergraduate degrees from Morehouse College and a master’s in clinical-community psychology from the University of South Carolina. Kareem believes in the potential of all students, the brotherhood of man, and the importance of service above self. His educational heroine, for literacy instruction, is the late Marva Collins.

As Chief Learning Officer of Lexia® Learning, Dr. Liz Brooke is responsible for setting the educational vision for the company’s Language and Literacy products, including the Adaptive Blended Learning (ABL) strategy. She has been with the company for more than 10 years. Prior to joining Lexia, Dr. Brooke served as the Director of Intervention at the Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR). She has been working in education for more than 25 years. She has worked in hospital, university, and school settings as a speech-language pathologist, researcher, and she began her career as a first-grade teacher. She has been published in several scholarly journals and books. Dr. Brooke shares Lexia’s mission of creating opportunity for every student through the power of literacy education, and it continues to be the driving force behind all her work.

Andrea Setmeyer has a master’s degree in school psychology from Northern Illinois University and is a nationally certified school psychologist in Indianapolis, Indiana. She is honored to serve as the National Chapter Coordinator for The Reading League, supporting a growing network of vibrant chapter leaders throughout the country. Andrea has been a literacy advocate in the public school setting for many years and co-founded The Reading League Indiana in 2019, aspiring to bring greater knowledge of evidence-aligned literacy instruction to educators and stakeholders throughout the state.

About the Moderator

Cassandra Wheeler is a proud “Poet” of the 1990 graduating class at Sidney Lanier High School of Montgomery Public Schools (MPS) in Alabama. In 1994, following undergraduate studies at the University of Alabama at Birmingham where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in early childhood education, Cassandra returned home to MPS and began her career as an educator at Morningview Elementary School. After earning her master’s degree and administrative certification, Cassandra joined the Alabama Reading Initiative, where she authored Alabama’s Reading First Initiative grant and managed Alabama’s statewide DIBELS pilot. In 2004, after serving the children of Alabama for ten years, Cassandra expanded her outreach to impact the life trajectories of students everywhere by joining the (then) Voyager Expanded Learning organization. Now, as the newly merged Lexia Learning, Cassandra serves the organization as the first-ever Senior Manager of LETRS State Success.

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

Join The Science of Reading community to network with educators, participate in online discussions, receive invitations to upcoming edWebinars, and view recordings of previous programs to earn CE certificates.

Lexia® Learning, a Cambium® company, is one of the most impactful and highly respected reading-technology companies in the world. Founded over 35 years ago, Lexia’s research-proven programs help educators deliver personalized reading and language instruction for millions of K–12 students across the world.

We are proud to partner with The Reading League, a nonprofit organization with the mission to advance the awareness, understanding, and use of scientific-aligned reading instruction.