At the International Literacy Association 2015 Conference, popular authors will team with educators to share effective, engaging, and interactive teaching strategies to integrate certain books, both fiction and nonfiction, in their classrooms. The panels are modeled (and named) after the popular Putting Books to Work column on Literacy Daily.
Sessions will be broken down into primary, middle, and young adult reading levels, with two authors and an educator (or two) as the catalyst for open discussion between panelists and attendees.
Deborah Wooten (Children’s Literature in the Reading Program: Engaging Young Readers in the 21st Century) will moderate the primary panel on Saturday, July 18, along with prolific nonfiction author Laurence Pringle (Strange and Wonderful series) and the award-winning Salina Yoon (Penguin and Pinecone).
In the middle grade panel on Sunday, July 19, Sandra Athans will be the moderator for two critically acclaimed and beloved authors: Sharon Draper (Stella by Starlight) and Megan Frazer Blakemore (The Friendship Riddle).
Mary Cotillo and Erin O’Leary (aka the Crazy Reading Ladies), will team up to moderate the young adult panel Monday, July 20, with The New York Times best-selling authors Ellen Hopkins (Rumble) and Una LaMarche (Unabrow).
The ILA 2015 Conference will be held July 18–20 in St. Louis, MO, with more than 6,000 educators ready to transform their practice. Key topics affecting literacy featured at the conference include content literacy, children’s literature, classroom engagement, and professional development. In addition to conference favorites, including a revamped Teaching Edge series and these Putting Books to Work panels, more than 120 exhibitors will be on hand with new tools and technologies for all manners of literacy education.
Learn more about the conference programs at ilaconference.org. Register today for the ILA 2015 Conference to take advantage of special Early Bird pricing, now extended to July 7.
April Hall is editor of Literacy Daily. A journalist for about 20 years, she has written and edited for newspapers, websites, and magazines. She covered a great deal of educational issues including the roll-out of both Race to the Top and Common Core State Standards.