Spelfabet

Hope to see you at the Language, Learning and Literacy conference

0 Replies

I’m taking the whole Spelfabet team to Perth for the Language, Literacy and Learning conference next month (Thursday 7th to Saturday 9th May). We’re really looking forward to it.

Online learning is good, but you can’t beat getting right away to learn and catch up with colleagues at a world-class, in-person conference.

I’ve only managed to attend this conference in person once (COVID & family stuff got in the way) and it was brilliant. I wrote blog posts about it here and here. Profs Stanislas Dehaene and Kathy Rastle are among this year’s international keynote speakers again.

I think I’d cross the Nullarbor again just to hear from them, and maybe ask them a burning follow-up question or two during a meal break (and maybe embarrass myself asking for a selfie).

My wonderful gamify-everything colleague, Elle Holloway and I will present a workshop called “It’s all about the reps”, about high-repetition games we use in phonics and morphology intervention. We’re also proud to be a sponsor of the conference, and madly prepping new games and updated phonics playing cards for the trade exhibition. We’re going to donate some of our resources to the conference prize draw.

The venue will be the splendid Esplanade Hotel in Fremantle (try their virtual tour here). Other international speakers are Prof Stuart Kime from Evidence-Based Education in the UK, Dr Zach Groshell of the Education Rickshaw in the US, children’s mental health expert Tara Thiagarajan from Sapien Labs in the US, and maths expert Kristopher Boulton from Unstoppable Learning in the UK.

A total of 60 sessions will be presented by a multitude of experts. It took us quite a while to decide who’d sign up for which session. Too many interesting options. A good problem to have.

You can learn more and register here: www.dsfconference.net.au, and their socials are:

• Facebook: @dyslexiaspeld
• LinkedIn: @dsf-literacy-and-clinical-services
• X: @DyslexiaSPELD

P.S. I realise this blog post sounds a bit like an ad for the conference, sorry. I’ve just become President of SPELD-Vic, sister organisation of DSF, the conference organisers. Their CEO, Mandy Nayton, has put in a colossal effort moonlighting as volunteer SPELD-Vic CEO, and provided heaps of DSF staff time and expertise to SPELD-Vic, to pull it out of a bit of a slump. I want their conference to be a huge success for that reason as well as because we’re all going, and I’m pretty sure it will be.

Hope to see you there!

Alison Clarke