23 Sep Speaker Spotlight [EDU]: Kate Roberts – Keynote Speaker on Literacy and Instructional Leadership
Kate Roberts is a national literacy consultant and top-selling author whose keynotes give teachers reading and writing strategies they can use the next morning, not just at a conference. Collaborative Agency Group represents Roberts for education association conferences and district-wide professional development days, and this spotlight covers what her sessions deliver and who is booking her this fall.
What a Kate Roberts Keynote Covers
Roberts speaks on literacy, close reading, differentiated writing instruction, and the teaching tools that make those strategies stick in a real classroom. Her sessions are built from her own years in the classroom and as a staff developer, not from theory alone, which is why literacy coaches and curriculum directors describe her as credible with teachers from the first ten minutes. Rather than a single one-size-fits-all lecture, Roberts customizes her content to where a district or association actually is in its literacy work, whether that is a K-5 building focused on foundational reading or a secondary English department wrestling with whole-class novels.
The Books Behind the Keynote
Roberts is the co-founder of the Kate and Maggie literacy consulting partnership and co-author of DIY Literacy with Maggie Beattie Roberts, along with Falling in Love with Close Reading, written with Christopher Lehman. Her most recent book, The Heart of Fiction: Reading Through Character, Theme and Craft, published in 2023, addresses how teachers can help students connect with literature through character, theme, and craft rather than test-prep-style comprehension checks. Each title is built around the same idea: literacy instruction should be practical enough for a Monday morning, not just a Friday PD session. Before becoming a full-time consultant, Roberts taught reading and writing in Brooklyn and spent more than a decade as a staff developer with the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, the same program that has trained thousands of literacy coaches nationally.
Who Books Kate Roberts
State and regional education associations, K-12 districts, and curriculum teams book Roberts for general session keynotes and full-day literacy workshops. She is a strong fit for audiences of literacy coaches, English department chairs, and instructional leaders who want frameworks their teachers will actually use, not another motivational session about the importance of reading. Districts in the middle of a curriculum adoption or a push to improve reading scores tend to get the most out of a full workshop day layered on top of the keynote.
What Audiences Take Away
Teachers leave a Roberts session with two or three concrete tools they can use the next school day, not a stack of theory to file away until the next PD cycle. Her signature move is showing the same teaching tool differentiated three ways, so a room with a wide range of experience levels all walk out with something they can apply immediately, whether they are a first-year teacher or a twenty-year veteran.
The Bottom Line
Kate Roberts turns two decades of literacy consulting into a keynote that teachers leave ready to use. Collaborative Agency Group can check her availability for a fall or winter conference, or recommend another literacy or education speaker from a roster of 700-plus. See her full profile or browse the full education speakers roster.
Bring Kate Roberts to your next education conference.