Knowledge Building for Beginning Readers, with Dr. Freddy Hiebert

Presented by Dr. Elfrieda Hiebert, Author of Scholastic W.O.R.D., President and CEO of TextProject.org, and Research Associate at the University of California, Santa Cruz
Moderated by Jessica Wollman, Senior Vice President, General Manager of Curriculum, Scholastic Education Solutions; and Amanda Alexander, Chief Academic Officer, Scholastic

Sponsored by Scholastic Education Solutions

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Closed captioning will be added to the recording within 2 weeks of the live presentation. Get a CE Certificate for this edLeader Panel Learn more.

In this edLeader Panel, ​​Dr. Freddy Hiebert shares her research-based strategies for educators to help students make connections that will allow them to not only understand the text at hand, but also to build the capacity to understand more texts at a deeper level. Educators especially appreciate Dr. Hiebert’s tactical and thoughtful approach as she shares small, actionable changes that make a big, long-term impact.

Viewers leave with an understanding of the following:

• The science behind vocabulary and background knowledge and its impact on reading comprehension and content learning
• At what point of a child’s reading development it is best to introduce vocabulary and background knowledge—and how this overlaps with developing other critical reading skills such as word recognition
• How educators engage young children (Grades PreK-2) in the expansion of their vocabulary and knowledge base

This recored edLeader Panel is of interest to K-5 teachers, school and district leaders, and education technology leaders.

About the Presenter

Dr. Elfrieda “Freddy” Hiebert is a renowned reading researcher and author of Scholastic W.O.R.D. She has had a lifelong career as a literacy educator and has scanned and studied 10,000 children’s texts to discover the 2,500 morphological word families students will encounter 90% of the time. Dr. Hiebert is the president and CEO of TextProject.org and a research associate at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is a fellow of the American Research Association and was awarded a William S. Gray Citation of Merit by the International Reading Association for outstanding contributions to the field of reading.

About the Moderators

Jessica Wollman is Senior Vice President, General Manager of Curriculum at Scholastic Education Solutions. Jessica began her career as a pre-K and primary teacher in New York City public and private schools. Jessica has devoted her career to transforming education through print and digital resources of the highest quality.

Amanda Alexander is Scholastic’s Chief Academic Officer and brings more than 20 years of progressive leadership experience in the field of education. Amanda began her career as a kindergarten teacher and has served as an assistant principal in the New York City Department of Education and as a principal in the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS). She later joined the DCPS central office in a variety of roles with an emphasis on principal supervision. Over the course of her time as a central office administrator, Amanda also led literacy initiatives and a districtwide task force to identify and implement evidence-based practices in reading and learning to improve student performance.

Closed captioning will be added to the recording within 2 weeks of the live presentation.

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