Tennessee Center for the Study and Treatment of Dyslexia
Word Connections Implementation Workshop
Instruction to Support Word-Level Reading Skills for Students in the Intermediate Grades
June 5-6, 2025
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. Students with reading disabilities, even those who have attained foundational reading skills, often experience substantial difficulty with multisyllabic words. This workshop will begin with an overview of processes involved in multisyllabic word reading and instructional routines to support students’ acquisition of word-level reading skills. Dr. Toste will describe the instructional practices that comprise Word Connections, an evidence-based targeted reading intervention program focused on multisyllabic word reading fluency. She will demonstrate the instructional routines used for each of the seven components of Word Connections and discuss considerations for effective implementation. There will be opportunities to practice each program component and discuss considerations for successful implementation.
Space is limited! Secure your spot by registering today!
Meet Your Instructor: Jessica Toste, Ph.D.
Dr. Jessica Toste is an Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education at The University of Texas (UT) at Austin. She holds research affiliations with the Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk and Texas Center for Equity Promotion. Her research is focused on methods for intensifying intervention for students with persistent reading challenges and reading disabilities, and she is principal investigator on grants from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES) and Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She is the Editorin-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 the 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 on Instagram (instagram.com/tosteteam) and YouTube (youtube.com/@TosteTeam).
Registration
Use the registration button below to register for either the in-person or virtual option.
Payment
Please note that registration is not complete until you have submitted payment.
Please select from the following options to submit payment for either the two-day, in-person workshop (June 5-6, 2025) or the one-day, virtual workshop (June 5, 2025).
Questions?
Please direct all inquiries to:
dyslexia@mtsu.edu / (615) 494-8880