Experienced Elementary Educator Specializing in Literacy

Karen C.

I have been a successful elementary school educator for 27 years. For my 23 years in the classroom, I taught almost all grades, but taught 4th and 5th grades for the majority of those years. My role the last 4 years of my career was as a Teacher on Special Assignment for my district. That role helped me learn in depth about early literacy-phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, etc. I was in charge of our reading intervention program for at risk students, which transitioned successfully to online only instruction during COVID.

I have experience in all subjects, but literacy: reading fluency, comprehension and writing are at the top of my qualifications list. I am well versed in the area of metacognition and will not just "help" the student through subject matter, but will give my students the skills to help themselves learn in all subjects.

As part of my role as TOSA, I helped administer the Acadience literacy assessments. These assessments start with all the early reading skills: phonemic awareness, phonics and sight words. In 2nd through 6th grades, the focus is on fluency, accuracy and retell. I analyzed all district data to determine next steps and identify students who were at risk and qualified for SIPPS, our district reading intervention program.

My concentration in college was linguistics and grammar. Learning English grammar truly helped me learn Spanish as a second language. I am more fluent in writing than speaking of the language, but it helped me teach English and Spanish reading to first graders at the beginning of my career. My knowledge of Spanish is very helpful in teaching English to second language learners.

As a retiree, I would love the opportunity to use all my experience to help as many students as possible not only gain confidence, but truly succeed in whatever area they need. I look forward to the opportunity to make a difference AND have fun!