It was a conference where the teachers became the students: More than 300 educators from all over the world came together all in the name of literacy. The conference is hosted by The Reading League.

Educators say literacy has become a universal public health crisis. The conference is designed to help educators learn how to teach reading.

Organizers say oftentimes, issues such as poverty or family education level are attributed to low literacy rates. But these teachers and researchers say teaching this subject is also a big challenge -- even here.

"We've really seen really flat literacy achievement over the last several years," said Syracuse City School District English Language Arts Director Rhonda Zajac. "We've been doing a ton of work. Our teachers have been working hard. Our administrators have been working hard. We have seen some promising increases over the last few years in our proficiency levels, but not enough. We still have just way too many kids performing at really low levels."

This is the first conference the Reading League has hosted. The group puts on bi-monthly events as well to help educators.