I Can Read In French

I have taught French Immersion in Toronto since 2008. After eight years teaching homeroom (Grade 1, 2 and Full-Day Kindergarten), I moved into Special Education, accepting a position as Methods and Resource Teacher. Much of my time as Resource Teacher was focused on students reading below grade level. It became all too clear that teachers, despite their efforts and best intentions, lack adequate knowledge and resources to teach reading effectively. This lead me to do research into evidence-based teaching methods, the science of reading, and structured literacy. Using this knowledge, I have created resources to help educators achieve their goal of teaching students to read. My areas of expertise are: French as a Second Language, Structured Literacy, Special Education, and working with ELLs (English Language Learners).

I rely on evidence-based methodologies in my Reading program. Thanks to fields such as neuroscience and cognitive psychology, we now have solid evidence and practical, concrete activities we can use in our classrooms to accomplish the difficult and important task of teaching children to read. Systematic instruction in the following areas can turn children whose reading is slow and laboured into fluent readers: 1) phonemic awareness (understanding how words are broken into the sounds represented by the alphabet); 2) phoneme/grapheme correspondence (understanding how these sounds are encoded in writing); and, 3) reading decodable texts (texts which children are capable of reading phonetically at a given stage of learning) To learn more about the Science of Reading, I encourage everyone to visit The Reading League and The International Dyslexia Association.

From 2010-2012, I piloted Full-Day French Immersion Kindergarten for the Toronto District School Board. During that time, I also served as Editor and Contributing Writer on the Parkdale Public School Grant Writing Committee, which successfully won $195,000.00 in literacy materials through the Indigo Love of Reading Grant. More recently, I was selected to be part of a Literacy Development Team, which includes French Immersion Teachers and Speech Language Pathologists, within the Toronto District School Board (2018-present).

B. Ed., Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (2009). Teaching English as a Second/Other Language Diploma (2007). M.A., York University (2005). B.A. Honours, University of Saskatchewan (2004). Additional Qualifications: Teaching English Language Learners (2020). Special Education (2019). French as a Second Language (2009).

Visit icanreadinfrench.com for more information.