About Me

After nearly a decade of teaching in the public school setting, I have started a new venture in pursuit of my true passion: teaching children how to read. It is my prayer that through this work I will reach more students who face challenges in literacy. From learning to reading, reading to learn, phonics and spelling my program is designed to meet the needs of each individual.

I serve the North Metro Atlanta area, specifically the North Cobb region, where I teach out of my home during the after-school hours. I am available for in-person and virtual learning sessions.

I began cultivating my knowledge and understanding around the Science of Reading while I was an undergraduate student at Kennesaw State University. As I read the National Reading Panel’s report on the essential elements of literacy education, I began to understand the need to not only teach children the process of reading but understand how they interpret the reading process. This led me to further research in my master’s program at Liberty University. I studied the great debate on phonics verses whole language instruction. From this research, it became apparent to me that children must be given consistent and systematic instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency skills, and comprehension strategies before they leave elementary school. As I applied this to my pedagogy, I saw a drastic shift in my students’ learning outcomes. This led me to become Orton-Gillingham certified as I felt I needed a way to ensure my students with dyslexia were provided more support.

 The research I completed while in my education specialist program at the University of Alabama furthered my ideas on the importance of daily systematic phonics instruction, small group literacy intervention, and brain-based learning. My thesis for this program explored metacognition. I worked to understand the metacognitive strategies students use when reading and how this can support educators when teaching reading comprehension strategies. This knowledge, along with my understanding of Scarborough’s Reading Rope and The Simple View of Reading, provided me with skills to develop a comprehensive professional learning program for my local school. Through this work, I have been able to reach more students by educating teachers on research-based best practices.