I have been at SCS since 2020 and have been teaching since 2016. My elementary and ELL endorsements are through CityU. I am Wired for Reading Level 3 trained. I also have an MFA in Children’s Writing through Simmons College and was a children’s bookseller for 8 years.

I have taught and assisted in many grades, and my favorite has been reading intervention (of which I have done for many years now). When teaching beginning readers, much of our time is focused on learning phonics and other pre-reading skills through chants, discussions, and interactive games. For more advanced readers, I like to use books of their choice to decode/discuss, while still utilizing interactive games. (I love redeveloping classic games and individualizing strategies that are unique to each child.)

For math intervention, I empathize with students who struggle with numbers and calculations. (Math was so hard for me as a kid. I was almost screened for dyscalculia.) Once I found patient teachers who didn’t make me feel stupid over “not getting” even the simplest problems, numbers started making sense. I was able to climb over the barrier of math making me feel stupid and inadequate. Through my years of teaching math, I have found ways to break down each step of even a “simple” math problem into approachable segments.

Some non-educational facts: I have two cats, Hunter and James. I attend Trinity Church Seattle (in Ballard), I commute by bike, I love sketching (mainly ink and watercolor) and digital drawing, and I love coffee and chocolate.