Notes
Amber teaches 2nd grade at Washington. She has three sons: Carter (14 and a freshman), Reid (12 in 6th grade), and Evan (7 in 1st grade). They are busy with sports, theater, and orchestra! Carter is in the Academy for Sports Medicine. She has been teaching 23 years and has her Master’s in reading. She spent one year teaching at John Fixke in KCK (I knew her principal, Josie Herrera) and has been teaching 2nd grade for 10 years at Washington. (She has also taught 3rd, 4th, and Gifted.)
I shared that we had three goals:Â to get to know one another, both personally and professionally, to talk about how our work together might look (and what coaching is and isn’t), and to identify some successes and challenges she is experiencing in literacy instruction.
When I asked her to share successes, she said, “reading is my jam – my wheelhouse.” She reports that she is using the new curriculum with fidelity and is seeing good growth (specifically good comprehension). She has made some modifications to support fluency and get her students more time in text. She has added more dictation and has “begged for more push-in time.”
As for challenges, she says she has a group of higher readers, but a girl (Nathalie) has transferred in from Mahaffie. She speaks Spanish (she’s from Cuba) and her English is “fine” and she’s doing OK in math, but she barely knows her letters and sounds. Amber is trying to work with her one-on-one during Walk to Intervention.” Her PSI reveals that she can segment, but can’t blend.
We will meet on Wednesday, 2/11/26 at 2:30 to discuss what she might choose as her area of inquiry.