Education Resources

Prior to this career change, you were an educator with a focus on adolescent literacy and multilingual learners. Do you have any advice regarding how we, the educational community, can better engage and support developing readers and language learners?

I think one of the most important things to remember is that even though these students are still working toward proficiency in English or in their reading skills, they bring many assets to our schools and classrooms. We need to learn more about their backgrounds, experiences and interests in order to identify those assets and to make lessons and activities more relevant to them. We also need to make sure that our classrooms are places where students feel safe to take risks and make mistakes. Additionally, we need to continue to learn about the strategies and approaches that best support our developing readers and multilingual learners. Are we using sheltered English instructional strategies in our lessons? Are we finding accessible texts so that these students can build both skills and knowledge, rather than find themselves lost and frustrated? If we can’t find accessible texts, are we providing the scaffolds or supports so that the students can successfully comprehend? These strategies, along with many others, will support both developing readers and multilingual learners (and many other students too).

What is a standout moment of your career?

When I worked as the reading coach at McLoughlin Middle School, we were tasked with creating a daily reading class for all students. This was a huge task, and we had just a few months to figure out what to do. With support from SOESD literacy specialists, a group of teachers, administrators and I came up with a format that would work for both developing and advanced readers, thus creating our own reading program rather than purchasing a reading curriculum. It was a lot of hard work and involved a ton of collaboration and sharing of ideas and lessons. After just a couple of years, our striving readers were growing in both reading and writing skills, our reading scores were up across the board, and we won the Oregon Reading Association’s Exemplary Reading Program award. That award was great, but what was most rewarding was walking into the reading classes (taught by McLoughlin’s outstanding language arts and social studies teachers) and seeing students, especially the more reluctant readers, actively engaged in the lesson activities.

Would you mind telling us a fun reading or library anecdote from your childhood?  

I fondly recall how my elementary librarian and second grade teacher collaborated so that the stories we had written and illustrated in class could be “published" and displayed in the library. I remember walking into the library and seeing my book on top of a bookshelf, along with my classmates’ books, and they were all ready for check out — they even had an envelope and library card inside the cover! It was so exciting and helped build our confidence as writers.