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Tiffany Hogan Ph.D. - Moderator
Implementation Science and Systems Change to Improve Educational Outcomes
Implementation Science (IS) offers a framework for bridging the persistent gap between educational research and classroom practice. While high-quality instructional materials and evidence-based practices exist, their implementation often fails to create lasting change in educational outcomes. This disconnect stems from traditional approaches that are overly prescriptive and fail to account for local contexts, lived experiences, and systemic barriers. IS provides educational leaders with tools to navigate the inherently messy process of change while empowering them to adapt interventions to their specific school system. Unlike traditional implementation plans, IS acknowledges that change is iterative and requires continuous engagement with teachers, students, and families. IS studies show that even small changes, such as removing a single barrier to implementation, can significantly impact student outcomes. By viewing change through an IS lens, educators can enact system transformation with evidence-based practices. This session will set the stage for real world examples of IS in action.
Biography
Tiffany P. Hogan is the Director of the Speech and Language (SAiL) Literacy Lab, and Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at MGH Institute. Dr. Hogan joined the Institute in July 2013.
Dr. Hogan studies the genetic, neurologic, and behavioral links between oral and written language development, with a focus on co-morbid speech, language, and literacy disorders. Her research is funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders and the Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.
Dr. Hogan provides doctoral research training for students in the PhD in Rehabilitation Sciences program at the Institute and undergraduate and graduate students from numerous fields of study. She teaches graduate courses in literacy assessment and intervention, leading literacy change, and professional issues in academia.
Dr. Hogan is committed to implementing science and translating research into practice. She serves on national committees of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and is an elected board member of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading |
 | Nicole Patton Terry Ph.D. and Carmen Conner
Leadership Matters to Implementing Evidence-Based Reading and Literacy Practices in Schools
School and district leaders play a pivotal role in student achievement, yet their influence on literacy outcomes remains understudied in reading research. This gap is particularly significant given evidence suggesting leadership’s impact on student achievement may be most pronounced for our most vulnerable learners. Implementation science frameworks, including the Active Implementation Framework, position leaders as crucial agents of change, highlighting the concept of Strategic Leadership as essential for sustainable educational improvement. In this presentation, we will discuss the intersection of leadership and literacy through the lens of research-practice partnerships (RPPs), which facilitate leaders' engagement with and application of evidence-based practices. We will explore how leadership is related to the implementation of evidence-based practices in schools and classrooms, as well as how different forms of research engagement (instrumental, conceptual, and symbolic) influence leaders' decision-making and implementation processes. Drawing from our experiences developing and delivering professional learning for principals and instructional coaches with our partners in the Florida Department of Education and Leon County Schools, we demonstrate how RPPs can bridge the gap between research and practice in literacy leadership. This work has significant implications for multiple stakeholders: researchers must expand their focus to include leadership dimensions in reading and literacy-related studies and adopt collaborative methodologies to engage deeply practitioners across the research process; practitioners must also expand their focus to engage deeply with research and researchers to identify and solve their problems of policy and practice; and partnerships can be created and sustained to both accelerate discovery and support the uptake and use of evidence in ways that benefit leaders, teachers, and students. By leveraging the expertise of both researchers and practitioners, RPPs like ours represent a promising pathway for enhancing student reading outcomes, particularly for those most in need of effective instruction.
Biography
Nicole Patton Terry, Ph.D., is the Olive & Manuel Bordas Professor of Education in the School of Teacher Education, Director of the Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR), and Director of the Regional Education Lab—Southeast at Florida State University (FSU). Prior to joining FSU in 2018, she was an Associate Professor of Special Education at Georgia State University (GSU). She is the founding director of two university-based research entities where researchers work collaboratively with diverse school and community stakeholders to promote student success among vulnerable children and youth: The Urban Child Study Center at GSU and The Village at FCRR.
Dr. Terry’s research, innovation, and engagement activities concern young learners who are vulnerable to experiencing difficulty with language and literacy achievement in school, in particular, Black children, children growing up in poverty, and children with disabilities. Her research and scholarly activities have been supported by various organizations, including the Institute of Education Sciences, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the Spencer Foundation, and the William T. Grant Foundation. She currently serves as president elect for the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, and a member of the National Academies’ Committee on the Future of Education Research at the Institute of Education Sciences in the U.S. Department of Education. Dr. Terry earned a Ph.D. from Northwestern University's School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, with a specialization in learning disabilities, in 2004. She was as a special education teacher in Evanston Public Schools in Evanston, IL.
Carmen Conner, is the Principal at Pineview Elementary School, where she leads her faculty and staff to impact student learning, boost morale, and develop school leaders. Under her leadership and with the assistance of her faculty and staff, Pineview’s school grade improved from an F in 2018, to a C in 2019, and to a B in 2022. Mrs. Conner, is a graduate of Florida A&M University, a National Board-Certified Teacher, worked as a classroom teacher for 14 years at Hawks Rise Elementary, and as Assistant Principal for 7 years at Roberts Elementary. |
 | Margaret Goldberg
Turning Reading Research into Reality: Why is it so hard?
Schools struggle to turn knowledge of the science of reading into improved student achievement, despite abundant research on effective teaching practices. The implementation gap persists not just from a lack of information, but because we underestimate the complexity of change in educational systems. Why is implementation so much harder than we think it should be? How can we methodically improve instruction and create lasting change?
In this session, we'll discuss how to anticipate implementation barriers and build sustainable systems so that the efforts of district and school site leaders, researchers, funders, and policymakers can actually translate into improved reading achievement.
Biography
Margaret Goldberg is the co-founder of The Right to Read Project. Margaret is currently a literacy coach at Nystrom Elementary, a school in California’s Early Literacy Support Block grant. Within that grant, she supported a network of literacy coaches, all striving to improve early literacy achievement in California’s lowest performing schools. Prior to this, Ms. Goldberg held a variety of roles including district Early Literacy Lead, reading interventionist, and classroom teacher. In every role, she's worked to help schools and districts align instruction with reading research. Her writing is published on the r2R.p blog and on Reading Rockets. |
 | Adrea Truckenmiller Ph.D.
Science of Writing and More Implementation Questions
Writing instruction presents unique challenges in educational settings due to its complexity and the wide range of student abilities typically found within a single classroom. Despite its importance, educators often lack access to evidence-based practices that can effectively address their students' diverse needs. Writing development shares fundamental components with reading development, including code-related and language skills, creating a reciprocal relationship between these literacy domains. While reading instruction can enhance writing abilities, explicit writing instruction accelerates reading development. Moreover, writing instruction serves as a powerful tool for learning across content areas, particularly in science and social studies. To create an implementation path for best practices in writing for all students, including those with dyslexia and developmental language disorder, our research team developed The Writing Architect. This integrated assessment and instruction tool aims to connect students' developmental levels with research-based instruction across text structure, vocabulary, spelling, sentence accuracy, and transcription. Through three longitudinal studies involving over 50 teachers and 1,500 students, our research revealed significant implementation barriers in writing instruction, including a shortage of user-friendly materials and limited inclusion of informational writing in Tier 1 curriculum. Our findings highlighted teachers' strong motivation to provide effective writing instruction, suggesting that improved access to research-based resources could significantly enhance literacy outcomes in classroom settings.
Biography
Adrea Truckenmiller is an associate professor at Michigan State University. She conducts research in the Special Education and School Psychology programs and co-developed the Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) MA degree program. Prior to coming to MSU, she directed research in developing literacy screening assessment and professional development at the Florida Center for Reading Research and Regional Education Laboratory Southeast. Prior to that she was a coach for district-wide positive behavior support and MTSS at the Devereux Center for Effective Schools. Dr. Truckenmiller currently collaborates with school districts to improve decision-making based on writing and reading assessment within a MTSS framework to ensure that all students receive equitable access to evidence-based instruction according to their strengths and needs. Her accomplishments include over $5 million in extramural grants and contracts, more than 25 peer-reviewed publications, and service on several school psychology editorial boards, reading journal editorial boards, and the Lexia Educational Leadership Council. |
 | Kate Cain D.Phil. - Hollis Scarborough Award Recipient
Reading for meaning: the component skills, knowledge, and processes that enable success
Successful reading comprehension is the product of word recognition and language comprehension, as illustrated in Scarborough’s Reading Rope. Weaknesses in the components that contribute to each can result in reading difficulties, which has critical implications for instruction and assessment. In this presentation, I focus on the language comprehension strand of the Reading Rope. Beyond decoding, successful reading comprehension draws on a range of language skills, knowledge, and cognitive processes that directly support reading for meaning. I will summarize research that validates a dynamic componential view of reading comprehension. This work reveals how these components - language skills, knowledge, and cognitive processes - operate interactively as readers construct meaning from text, and support comprehension proficiency and learning across development. The instructional implications are that: educators should provide explicit instruction to develop both word recognition and language comprehension skills; effective instruction should include opportunities to promote strategic processing of authentic texts; and educators should foster sustainable reading habits that provide regular opportunities for skill practice and knowledge growth. This dynamic componential view of reading comprehension builds on frameworks such as Scarborough’s Reading Rope to explain how readers construct meaning from text and become skilled readers over time.
Biography
Dr. Kate Cain is a Professor of Language and Literacy at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom. Her research revolves around the different cognitive and language-related skills that underpin the development of reading and listening comprehension, both in atypical and typical populations. Her work has identified several higher-level skill impairments that may be causally linked to poor comprehension, including the ability to generate inferences, knowledge and use of reading strategies, and the ability to construct coherent and integrated narratives. She serves as the President of the Society of the Scientific Study of Reading and is an elected member of the governing board of the Society for Text and Discourse. |
 | AIM to Impact Leadership Panel
Enablers and Barriers to Effective Literacy Implementation
Head of AIM Institute Kristen Wynn moderates a discussion on effective literacy implementation featuring nationwide literacy leaders: Dr. Khalek Kirkland, Community Superintendent District 23, New York City Department of Education; Dr. Grant Rivera, Superintendent of Marietta City Schools (GA); and Dr. Carey Wright, Maryland State Superintendent of Schools.
Biographies
Kristen Wynn
Kristen Wynn has served in the field of education for 20 years most recently as State Literacy Director (K-12) for the Mississippi Department of Education. During her tenure at the Mississippi Department of Education, where she also served as a literacy coach, a Regional Literacy Coordinator and an Assistant State Literacy Coordinator, Kristen played a crucial role in transforming literacy education.
Kristen, an experienced elementary educator, is the co-creator of several literacy professional development trainings (for educators) aligned to the science of reading and has presented on literacy development and leadership topics nationwide. She holds a BS in Education from Belhaven College and an M.Ed. in Educational Administration and Supervision from Jackson State University. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Educational Leadership from Jackson State University.
Kristen is the mother of two wonderful boys, Braxton and Parker and a sweet princess, Baylor.
Dr. Khalek Kirkland
Khalek Kirkland presently serves as the Community Superintendent in Brownsville, Brooklyn (District 23). Notably, he led Boys Prep, an all-boys charter school, and guided Quest Academy for gifted students, showcasing a commitment to academic success. His impact extended to The SEED School of Maryland, the state's singular public boarding school for at-risk students in grades 6-12. Khalek played a crucial role as the Senior Director of Leadership for the NYC Department of Education, contributing to the development of new principals citywide. Beginning as a math teacher at Ronald Edmonds Learning Center- MS 113, he progressed through roles like math coach, Assistant Principal, and Principal in the RELC community. Beyond his professional achievements, Khalek finds fulfillment in his family and proudly serves as the Immediate Past Basileus of the Alpha Upsilon chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Incorporated
Dr. Grant Rivera
Grant Rivera has been the proud Superintendent of Marietta City Schools since 2016, leading the district’s 12 schools, approximately 8,900 students, and 1,200 employees. He is a career educator who has served in principal, teacher, and coach positions prior to becoming superintendent. Dr. Rivera believes learning to read and write is one of life’s most fundamental achievements and that a student’s success in literacy development paves the way for future success. He is leading Marietta City Schools in setting a new standard for what it means to invest in literacy education.
Grant holds a bachelor’s degree in education and social policy from Northwestern University and earned a master’s degree in special education and a Doctorate of Education with an emphasis in school law from the University of Alabama. Dr. Rivera serves as a board member of multiple education-focused organizations, and he is actively engaged in raising funds and awareness of pediatric cancer.
Dr. Carey Wright
Carey M. Wright was appointed State Superintendent of Schools by the Maryland State Board of Education in April 2024. A native Marylander, she previously served as State Superintendent of Education in Mississippi. As the longest-serving Mississippi state superintendent, she is credited with elevating Mississippi to become a national leader in literacy instruction and outcomes during her nine-year term from 2013 to 2022. Dr. Wright led the implementation of successful education reforms that resulted in significant annual gains in English Language Arts and Mathematics proficiency.
A passionate advocate for early childhood education, Dr. Wright implemented Mississippi’s first publicly funded Early Learning Collaborative program, which earned recognition from the National Institute for Early Education Research as one of only five states meeting all 10 quality standards for early childhood education. In addition, Dr. Wright led initiatives that nearly doubled the Advancement Placement participation and success rate. She retired as Mississippi state superintendent in 2022.
Prior to her leadership in Mississippi, Dr. Wright was chief academic officer for District of Columbia Public Schools as well as deputy chief for the Office of Teaching and Learning. Dr. Wright also served as associate superintendent for the Office of Special Education and Student Services for Montgomery County Public Schools. A product of Prince George’s County Public Schools, she began her teaching career there and held teaching and administrative roles in the Howard County Public School System.
Dr. Wright is a former member of the Chiefs for Change Board of Directors. Notably, the U.S. Secretary of Education appointed her in 2019 to the National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policy for NAEP, the Nation’s Report Card. Her honors include the 2022 Mississippi Top 50 Most Influential Leaders Award. She is a University of Maryland graduate, earning undergraduate, advanced and doctoral degrees in education |
