About Me

Over the past 25 years I have been fortunate to be able to build my teaching career by melding my lifelong gifts and passions for language, literacy, and education. I have worked in a variety of capacities in education as a literacy researcher, classroom educator, and teacher trainer and mentor. Since 2015 I have provided individualized literacy tutoring for emergent and developing readers as well as middle and high school level students wanting to improve their reading and writing skills. In this time I have also provided private literacy intervention for struggling readers and writers of all ages, with and without a formal diagnosis of dyslexia.

I hold a BA in Classical Culture with a focus in historical linguistics and Ancient Greek from the University of Georgia and a Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) in early childhood education from the College of Charleston. In addition to being a (non-active) certified K-5 teacher, I am trained and certified in the Orton Gillingham (OG) approach to dyslexia intervention, have a Structured Literacy Educator certificate from the International Dyslexia Association, and a Teaching English as a Second/Other Language (TESOL) certificate.

Since 2020, I have engaged in hundreds of hours of professional learning and continued study in Structured Word Inquiry (SWI), orthographic linguistics, grammar, and syntax, developing a deep and accurate understanding of the system and structure of the English language and how this can be used to facilitate reading, spelling, and writing instruction. I use this understanding to teach my students of all ages that written language is more than letters representing sounds and that English is not crazy, senseless, or full of exceptions in spelling and pronunciation. I continue to study and explore with my teachers, peers, and mentors, and I am constantly learning with and from my students who are my greatest teachers.