Dynamically loading a number of user controls

Hoping someone can offer some guidance on this.

I have a user control I want to load dynamically from a VB.NET code-behind page.  I also want access to the user control's properties from the code-behind.  I have added the following to my user control's page:
<%@ Control Language="VB" AutoEventWireup="false" CodeFile="TextField.ascx.vb" Inherits="Controls_TextField"
    ClassName="TextField" %>
I understand that this should allow for each instance of the user control to be strongly-typed as 'TextField'
Other documentation I have read mentions adding the following
<%@ Reference Control="~/Controls/TextField.ascx" %>
to the main aspx page.  My first question is do I still need to do this as I have added references to all my user controls in the web config?  I HAVE added it to the page and also have it in the web config ...