Senior Lecturer Irina Valerievna Chepurina took part in English Reading Summit organized by the University of Maryland, USA

Senior Lecturer at the Department of Germanic Philology and Scandinavian Studies Irina Valerievna Chepurina took part in the “Literacy and Equity in the 21st Century: Closing the Opportunity Gap” summit, organized by the University of Maryland (College of Education), USA.

The Summit was held on January 8 on the Zoom platform and brought together education representatives to discuss issues related to teaching to read in English. In her welcome speech, Jennifer King Rice, Dean of the College, noted:

It is important to be able to read, because it is reading that makes a person free.

The summit, which lasted almost 6 hours, was of a theoretical and applied nature and aimed to identify relevant technologies for teaching reading that can be introduced into educational programs in order to increase the literacy level of schoolchildren and students. The program of the summit was rich and fruitful: after the plenary session, a discussion took place within the framework of the planned round table with the participation of five specialists who presented their views on the problem of reading.

After the discussion, the audience continued to work in microgroups created in session rooms on the Zoom platform, so everyone present at the summit was able to take a direct part in solving the discussed problem and share their experience in teaching reading. 30 minutes were allocated for the conversation in microgroups, after which all the summit participants returned to the main conference hall to hear new reports and see the specialists participating in the second round table. The summit ended with another work in microgroups and a summing up of the results by the dean of the college Jennifer King Rice.