Associate Professor
Brooklyn College, City University of New York (CUNY)
Co-Founder & Principal Investigator
CUNY Reading Corps
Author
Reading Ready
BC Early Literacy Lab
Josh Barocas
Lower School & Kindergarten Learning Specialist at Saint Ann’s School
Josh helps students acquire early literacy skills, and supports teachers in doing the same. He is currently working on a paper with Professor Miles examining the content of word walls in Kindergarten classrooms. He spends his free time playing guitar, taking his son hiking, and reading about reading.
Annabelle Baylin
PreK Teacher at Park Avenue Methodist Day School
Annabelle is interested in supporting young children to develop strong foundational literacy skills through engaging, active, and developmentally appropriate games and activities. Annabelle is working on publishing her research on a kinesthetic phonemic awareness intervention for PreK, as well as a manual with a guide to all of the games.
When Annabelle is not teaching, she is studying Hindustani classical voice and photographing her Bengal cats.
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Brooke Diviak
Special Education Itinerant Teacher (SEIT) at Park Avenue Methodist Day School
Brooke is interested in supporting young children to develop the skills and confidence needed to succeed in reading. Brooke designed a board game focused on phonemic awareness and encouraging children to break apart all of the sounds they hear in a word.
Brooke enjoys reading psychology and philosophy and taking walks around New York City.
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Board Game Resources: Card Set (PDF) & Playing Board (PDF)
Anna Fischer
2nd Grade Special Education Teacher at PS 770: The New American Academy
Anna is interested in finding innovative ways to help struggling readers push through challenges and find joy in reading. When not teaching, Anna can be found at the pottery studio, taking long walks with her dog, and well...reading!
Janet Mendez
Educational Director/ Pre-k Teacher
Baybee Lounge Daycare, Brooklyn N.Y.
Janet is interested in finding new and innovative ways to keep preschoolers engaged in early literacy. Her primary focus is developing games to support letter name and letter sound recognition.
When Janet is not teaching, she enjoys spending time with her family and binge-watching FRIENDS. She is currently helping her 9-year-old run her own business.
Tory Moulder
Universal Pre-K/3-K Teacher
Tory previously worked at Nat Azarow Children’s Center, a Universal Pre-K/3-K center in Brooklyn, and is very excited about diving into the world of early literacy research. She is particularly interested in how to integrate speech-language pathology into early reading instruction. She is currently working on a manual for teachers on how to use articulation pictures with pre-k students. Tory loves reading, running, playing drums, and most of all spending time with her husband and children.
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Extra: Infographic on Articulatory Pictures - Extended (PDF)
Gregory B. Rubin
1st Grade General Education Teacher at P.S. 130 The Parkside School
Gregory is interested in developmentally appropriate literacy instruction that empowers children to crack the code of written language. Gregory co-authored Rethinking Sight Words, for which he led an intervention which is now being used by educators across the country. When not teaching, he can be found taking photographs and cooking fish.
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Extra: Jamboard for Double Decker Elkonin Boxes: Regular and Irregular Words. (Google Jamboard)
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For more information on explicit mapping instruction see Grace, K. (2006). Phonics and Spelling through Phoneme-Grapheme Mapping. Sopris West.