Are you going to attend the International Reading Association Conference in New Orleans? It is next weekend, May 9-12, 2014 in New Orleans, LA! I will be presenting there on Monday morning, May 12th. But the fun begins on Saturday, because my Twitter friend, Lyssa Turner Sahadevan decided that we would plan a meet up on Saturday, May 10, and invite anyone else that would like to join us to come as well!
Lyssa is the blogger at MyMommyReads.com, and she is a self-described First grade teacher, book lover, and preschool mom. I am new to her blog, and I am really looking forward to checking it out! You can view her post about the IRA conference at this link here.
Actually, we have no idea if there will be ANYONE else besides the two of us at our little meet up, LOL! But we are fine with that. If you are attending IRA and would like to meet for a little chat, please join in the fun! You don’t have to be a fan of Twitter to come; you really don’t even need to be a primary teacher! You just need to be friendly and have a way to get yourself into the exhibit hall and over to IRA’s booth 1056, which they are calling the “Tweet Suite.” Isn’t that just so clever? 
The crazy thing is that because our conversation was taking place on Twitter, and because at least one of us (probably Lyssa, because I tend to forget my hashtags… BAD Heidi!) used the hashtag #IRA, someone from the conference picked up the conversation thread and contacted Lyssa. They offered us the use of their booth as our meeting place. Since we didn’t have any other place in mind, we readily accepted. (get it- readily???) LOL!
The next thing we knew, our meet up had an official, cute sounding, clever name: “IRA Primary Meet & Tweet” and was even included in a couple of their newsletters, with our names as the hosts! Ha ha!!! And here we thought we were just going to meet each other and chat just for fun! Now we are in charge of an actual GROUP! We even made up a Facebook Group for us all to connect. The only thing is that right now, Lyssa and I are the only ones in it, ha ha! But you can join us by clicking here. Otherwise, you can always connect with me on my regular HeidiSongs Facebook page here.
But as Pete the Cat would say, it’s all good! I am traveling alone, and I DO get lonely when I travel all by myself, so I will be happy for a little company. The IRA Convention has seminars for teachers all the way from Kindergarten to College age, so for me, sometimes just “finding” the other teachers that share my interests can be a challenge amongst the many THOUSANDS of attendees. It’s certainly more fun to go with a friend- but I usually make new friends when I’m there!
This is what I am presenting on Monday, May 12 from 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM:
How to Do Guided Reading with Pre-Readers, and Other Great Ways to Bring Young Children Into the Wonderful World of Reading
Grade Level: Pre-K, Remedial or early Kindergarten
Description:
Yes, Virginia! It IS possible to do guided reading with emergent readers and children that cannot yet read! It’s easy, it boosts language skills, and children enjoy it, too! Come learn how you can easily cover many important literacy skills as you guide young children into the wonderful world of reading in a fun and developmentally appropriate way. Plus, we’ll cover lots of other great guided reading strategies that really work to help get beginning readers moving towards becoming real readers.
You can get a sense of what I will be talking about by reading this blog post here:
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If you haven’t attended a national level conference like this before, though, I highly recommend it! There are so many workshops, sessions, and seminars to choose from that it is absolutely mind boggling! The wealth of new ideas is refreshing, invigorating, and energizing to everyone that attends. And the Exhibit Hall! Oh, MY! (Or maybe I should say Exhibit HALLS, because there is usually MORE than one?) The Exhibit Halls are so MASSIVE that you can’t even see where they end when you walk in.
You can see my other upcoming presentations here! I just updated my page, too! I have a brand new presentation coming up on June 10 in Oakdale, CA, and another new presentation in Region 3 ESE in Victoria, TX on June 25! Plus, you can still come and see me at I Teach K! in Las Vegas, NV in July! Just click on that link above for lots more information.
Check out this video today, just for fun! This one is to help children learn the “oo” sound, as in “food.” It’s from the Sounds Fun Phonics DVD.
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