24th Annual Emma Eccles Jones Early Childhood Symposium

The focus for the 2023 Symposium is Phonics Foundations That Work
Presenter Dr. Heidi Anne E. Mesmer
Held Virtually via Zoom

First 100 registrations are FREE with limited availability! Registrations are now FULL for the 2023 symposium.
Be sure to check back next year for the 2024 symposium topic and dates.

Heidi Anne E. Mesmer, PhD

Heidi Anne E. Mesmer, Ph.D., is a Professor in Literacy in the School of Education at Virginia Tech. She has studied beginning reading materials, text difficulty, and struggling readers since 1999. A former classroom teacher, she works extensively with teachers, schools, and young readers, directing numerous school-based initiatives to improve reading instruction. Heidi Anne studies beginning reading instruction and text difficulty and her work has been published in The Reading Teacher, Reading Research Quarterly, The Educational Researcher, Elementary School Journal, and Early Childhood Research Quarterly. She is the author of several books including Letter Lessons and First Words: Phonics Foundations that Work (Heinemann, 2019), Alphabetics for Emerging Learners: Building Strong Reading Foundations in PreK (2021). Teaching skills for complex text: Deepening reading in the classroom (Teachers College Press, 2016).  

Join us for the 2023 Symposium with features 3 active virtual sessions with Dr. Mesmer.

Each session is from 9:00 to 10:30 via Zoom

• June 27: Teaching Letters: Everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask
• June 28: Teaching First Words and Beyond: Learning to decode patterns in single-syllable words
• June 29: Teaching Big Words: Decoding multisyllabic, multimorphemic words

You will be provided more information and a Zoom link after registration.