Throughout my education, training, and professional career, I have focused on early childhood literacy, literacy teaching and learning, and literacy support services. I believe in a holistic approach that places the child at the center of a literacy rich environment.

My research is focused on how children’s literacy behaviors, beliefs, and skills are impacted by participating in tutoring and how stakeholders such as parents, teachers, and tutors perceive these changes across various settings, such as at home, at school, during tutoring, and out in the world. My dissertation, Understanding the Influence of a University-Based Reading and Literacy Center Literacy Tutoring Program on Students’ Literacy Behaviors, Beliefs, and Skills: Stakeholder Perspectives, provides insight into my beliefs about holisitic teaching and learning within complex, networked systems of home, school, and additional services.

• Tutoring:

  • Tutoring Coordinator: University Based Reading and Literacy Center

  • Tutor: One-to-one literacy tutor for kindergarten through 8th grade students

  • Teacher/Tutor: Online and in-person tutoring during COVID shutdown

• Teaching:

  • Classroom Teacher: 2nd grade general education classroom

  • Interventionist: 7th and 8th grade literacy and math intervention

• Education and Training:

  • Bachelor’s Degree: Illinois State University, BSED

  • Master’s Degree: Walden University, MSED

  • Doctorate: Illinois State University, Ed.D.

  • Orton-Gillingham Plus

    • “Orton-Gillingham is a highly structured approach that breaks reading and spelling down into smaller skills involving letters and sounds, and then building on these skills over time. It was the first approach to use explicit, direct, sequential, systematic, multi-sensory instruction to teach reading, which is not only effective for all students but essential for teaching students with dyslexia (https://imse.com/about-us/what-is-orton-gillingham/).

  • LETRS

    • “Developed by Dr. Louisa Moats and leaders in the field of literacy, Lexia LETRS teaches the skills needed to master the foundational and fundamentals of reading and writing instruction—phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and written language” (https://www.lexialearning.com/letrs).