About me
I am an Association Montessori Internationale trained teacher with certifications for primary (3-6 years old) and elementary (6-12 years old). I have over fifteen years experience in schools, working with toddlers through sixth-graders in Virginia, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. I am Providence-based, willing to travel locally, and available online. I expect to complete my practicum for certification as an associate in the Orton-Gillingham Academy in December 2025.
I first heard about the science of reading when I was teaching elementary school, and my experience teaching made me want to find out more.
That first year, I had an incoming group of first graders, all of whom were emerging readers. Over the next three years with this cohort (Montessori lower elementary classrooms are grades 1-3), some children easily began to decode and become proficient readers that year. Others took the entire year to build literacy skills, and returned as readers in second grade. The final group was smaller. They struggled throughout second grade with decoding simple words and eventually would be referred to the reading specialist in third grade. I decided then that the next certification I would seek as an educator would be Orton-Gillingham.
A small detour into school administration delayed my OG certification, but it provided concrete experiences with OG in a Montessori primary setting. As an administrator, I supported LTRS training for all teachers and hired an OG trained teacher to support best practices in the classrooms and to provide OG services for kindergarten students.
