ABOUT ME

EDUCATOR, TUTOR, STRATEGIST

My Passions & Philosophy

I have taught hundreds of students and seen the struggle to read and write. I have taught within the system of intervention plans that equate to using a phonics program year after year.  Most students do not graduate from that intervention plan. I knew something was missing in my instruction.  Going outside the training for the classroom, I trained with practitioners in Orton-Gillingham  (OG) for dyslexic learners. Tutoring and teaching the OG strategies made a great difference!  But, something was still missing.  I trained under the author, Dr. Pete Bowers, and with fellow practitioners in Structured Word Inquiry.  This training provided the tools that were missing for so many learners, and for me!

My passion has always been sharing strategies to build reading and writing skills, and most importantly, confidence.  We can build learning pathways where reading and writing makes sense, because it really does make sense...there is a reason for every confusing word.

In the school system, reading and writing is taught with a heavy focus on systematic phonics and phonemic awareness.  Words that "break the rules" must be memorized.  "Duz" sounds correct, but must be memorized to be spelled, "does."  This load of memorizing words to read and write overloads the brain and really clogs the process. Learners do not even have the opportunity to learn about the structure of our English words until they begin higher level classes.  This analysis of the word structure is the missing piece that I have seen make all of the difference!  And, it can begin with emerging readers!  It is often mind-blowing to struggling readers!  "Why didn't anyone ever show me this before?"

My Credentials

I have been an educator for over 30 years, working with learners from preschool through high school.  

I am a certified dyslexia tutor and practitioner through the Children's Dyslexia Centers, Inc.  

I have been a private tutor for fifteen years and have applied these strategies to several reading intervention classes of students.

My master's degree is in Instructional Design and Instructional Strategies.

​I am continuously involved in on-going professional growth and training. 

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About My Approach

When I first meet students, we talk about their talents and strengths.  We then talk about the area that is their goal to strengthen.  Reading and writing skills, or decoding and encoding, are synergistic. It is important to apply strategies to build both skills.  Building strategies for success as a learner is one of our major student outcomes.  Examining for patterns in words, inquiring to make a new discovery, and testing a hypothesis in our scientific model of word study leads learners to that successful outcome.

In this approach, the letter and sound connection has its proper place--within the study of a word in the context of the meaning of the word.  Word families formed by letter combinations help to prove the pronunciation.  Word families built by the meaning of the word, lead to many related words.

In the example below, the student inquired about the word, <doubt> while reading a passage.  "Why is there a <b> in this word?  The vowels <ou> make a funny sound here!"  The diphthong <ou> is the letter-sound connection and part of our investigation!  The bigger question is why is there a <b> in this word? How could it contribute to the meaning of the word? We follow our investigation steps:
             1)  What does this word mean?
             2) How is this word built?  
             3) What are some related words?
             4) What are the graphemes (letters) that function in this word?

This type of investigation leads to proving the <ou> sound with more words like:  out   sound  pout     It also leads to a deeper understanding of this base word as we look into the historical story behind the word to get the reason for the spelling.  The "Ah-Ha" moment is when we discover the reason for the spelling...because there is always a reason!  No need to memorize, just know the story behind the word and all of the relatives make sense.  With the investigation of this word, we unlock new grapheme-phoneme connections and fourteen meaningful words!