Cultivating the Literacy Landscape 2025
The Cultivating the Literacy Landscape Symposium 2025 is dedicated to bringing together leaders, educators, caregivers, and learners to advance literacy through structured, evidence-based practices. Featuring renowned keynote speakers, breakout sessions, and practical workshops, the symposium will delve into essential topics, including educational leadership, evidence-based literacy practices, and the science of reading and learning.
Schedule for Day 1 and Day 2
This year’s event features insights into leadership, coaching, the science of learning, and classroom practice.
The symposium opens with Dr Kymyona Burk sharing the journey of Mississippi's literacy transformation, highlighting the implementation of policy and the leadership that drove system-wide change. Dr Daryl Michel follows with a focus on coaching, exploring its role in helping teachers implement and sustain quality literacy practices. Natalie Wexler connects literacy instruction to the science of learning, showing how understanding cognitive processes strengthens practice and improves outcomes. Finally, Dr Lorraine Hammond shares practical, classroom-focused strategies rooted in explicit instruction, equipping teachers with tools to apply research-based approaches.
Alongside these keynotes, we’re pleased to offer a range of supporting workshops, giving educators, leaders, and specialists the chance to explore areas of interest in greater depth and apply their learning in meaningful ways.
Day 1 Keynote Addresses
Dr Kymyona Burk
Leading Literacy Change: Mississippi's Story and Shared Insight
Dr Kymyona Burk will share the remarkable journey of Mississippi's literacy transformation, highlighting the policies, practices, and leadership that drove significant gains in student outcomes. Attendees will gain insight into the challenges, strategies implemented, and collective effort required to create lasting, system-wide change. Dr Burk's expertise offers invaluable lessons for leaders and educators committed to improving literacy achievement.
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Kymyona Burk is a Senior Policy Fellow at ExcelinEd. In this role, she supports states pursuing a comprehensive approach to K-3 reading policy by assisting state leaders in building new or improving existing K-3 reading policies, with a heavy focus on supporting successful policy implementation. Kymyona most recently served in Mississippi as the Executive Director for the Jackson Public School District’s Office of Teaching and Learning and led all aspects of the district’s instructional programming. Prior to this, she was the State Literacy Director at the Mississippi Department of Education where she led the implementation of Mississippi’s Literacy-Based Promotion Act.
Kymyona began her career as an elementary reading teacher and has also taught middle and high school English. At Jackson State University, she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, Master of Arts in Teaching English, Master of Science in Education Administration and Supervision and a Doctor of Education in Early Childhood Education.
Dr Daryl Michel
Coaching: A Cornerstone of Quality Literacy Implementation
Dr Daryl Michel's keynote will explore the essential role of coaching in effective literacy instruction. He'll discuss how high-quality, sustained coaching supports teachers in refining their practice and consistently applying evidence-based strategies. Attendees will learn how coaching fosters collaborative professional growth that can lead to improved student outcomes, offering practical approaches to embed coaching into their literacy initiatives.
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Daryl Michel, PhD, consults with organisations nationally and internationally in areas such as instructional coaching, leadership, teacher education, disciplinary literacy, and learning and lesson study. He is the founder of Be A Change, LLC, and coauthor of Student-Focused Coaching: The Instructional Coach’s Guide to Supporting Student Success Through Teacher Collaboration (Brookes Publishing, 2022) and Instructional Leadership in Student-Focused Coaching: Creating Effective Systems to Cultivate Student Success (Brooks Publishing, 2025).
He also serves as a project manager for The University of Texas at Austin’s Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk consulting with districts to develop systemwide Multi-tiered System of Supports. Dr Michel began his career in the education profession over three decades ago and, today, continues to follow his passion of learning with and from others and advocating for voices and perspectives to be heard.
Day 2 Keynote Addresses
Natalie Wexler
Beyond the Science of Reading: Connecting Literacy Instruction to the Science of Learning
Natalie Wexler will delve into the intersection of literacy instruction and cognitive science, emphasising the importance of building knowledge alongside reading skills. She'll explore how understanding the science of learning can strengthen literacy practices, offering strategies to narrow knowledge gaps and improve comprehension. This keynote will challenge and inspire educators to align their teaching with research on how students best acquire and retain information.
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Natalie Wexler is the author of Beyond the Science of Reading: Connecting Literacy Instruction to the Science of Learning and The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America’s Broken Education System—and How to Fix It. She is the co-author, with Judith C. Hochman, of the first and second editions of The Writing Revolution: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades. She has a free Substack newsletter, Minding the Gap, and she was the host of Season One of the Knowledge Matters Podcast (“Reading Comprehension Revisited”).
Natalie’s articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The American Scholar, and other publications. She has spoken on education before a wide variety of groups and appeared on a number of TV and radio shows, including Morning Joe and NPR’s On Point and 1A. Natalie holds a BA from Harvard University, an MA in history from the University of Sussex (UK), and a JD from the University of Pennsylvania. She has worked as a reporter, a Supreme Court law clerk, a lawyer, and a legal historian. She lives in Washington, D.C.
Dr Lorraine Hammond
Empowering Learning: The Science Behind Instruction That Works
Dr Lorraine Hammond will explore the instructional practices that drive progress for more — and all — learners. Drawing from her extensive research and practical experience, she’ll highlight the impact of systematic, direct teaching methods, daily review, and high-quality feedback. Attendees will leave with actionable strategies to implement evidence-based approaches in their classrooms, strengthening both engagement and learning outcomes.
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Dr Lorraine Hammond AM is Professor of Early Years Literacy at The University of Notre Dame in Fremantle, Western Australia. She has worked and researched in the areas of early literacy, high impact instructional strategies, including explicit teaching and learning difficulties since 1990. Awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 2002, Lorraine was recognised by an Australian Government National Teaching Award (2016) for outstanding tertiary teaching and in 2017 by the Australian Council for Educational Leadership for her work in schools promoting high impact instruction. In 2019, Lorraine received an Order of Australia (AM) for her significant contribution to tertiary education and the community.
Lorraine has designed tertiary units of work on structured literacy and explicit instruction, including the first post-graduate unit on the Science of Reading Instruction in Australia. Since 2017, Lorraine has developed and presented professional learning on evidence-based literacy strategies for the Kimberley Schools Project in the north of Western Australia in regional and remote community schools as well as the Catholic Archdioceses of Adelaide, Broken Bay, Canberra-Goulburn, Melbourne and Tasmania. In 2024, Lorraine was inaugurated into the Western Australian Women’s Hall of Fame for her work teaching evidence-based reading instruction in schools and universities.
What to Expect
Whether you’re new to evidence-based reading instruction or highly experienced, these days offer something for everyone – an opportunity to delve deeply into practice, gain inspiration, and connect with the latest research.
Between the keynote and workshop sessions, you’ll find inspiration, fresh insights, and thought-provoking ideas — along with practical strategies tailored to literacy education, including:
Deep dives into effective spelling, reading, and writing instruction
Inspiration to strengthen your literacy leadership and coaching
Opportunities to enhance your knowledge and practice in intervention settings
The keynote sessions will be recorded and available for download following the symposium. Details will be shared soon.
Dates and Venue
Dates: Wednesday 20 and Thursday 21 August 2025
Venue: LIFE Central, 25 Normanby Road, Mount Eden, Auckland
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Buy your 2025 Symposium tickets via our online store.
*Early bird pricing available until Wednesday 7 May 2025. Prices are exclusive of GST. Terms and conditions apply.
Testimonials
The symposium was excellent PLD, at a very professional level. A strength of the symposium is that we hear from real experts in the field. The symposium is easily the most professional PLD I have experienced, in a teaching career that spans several decades."
Thank you for all the amazing mahi you are doing in across the motu. It was amazing to see that many teachers and support staff in one room learning more about how to help our kids - filled my cup over and over!"
I really enjoyed the day. It was also great to hear the success of a school adopting explicit teaching with a structured literacy approach and how active responses for all students was necessary and encouraged."
I really enjoyed the symposium. I feel really energized and motivated to implement changes in my practice. It has been really thought provoking for me and allowed some good reflection on my own practice and wider school policy."
I felt so lucky to have this opportunity to hear people from outside of NZ speak on topics that are close to my heart. I walked away feeling inspired and privileged to be in a room of liked minded professionals. I deepened my knowledge around the neuroscience and effective instruction. Such a valuable day!"
Was definitely worth the trip "across the ditch" to hear the expertise of ALL the keynote speakers. The day was professionally run by all the Learning MATTERS team. Well done everyone on a fantastic learning opportunity."
