ABOUT ME
Born and raised in Los Angeles, I have grown up in the very communities I serve. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude from the University of Vermont with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology, I began my career in special education. Working in a non-public school (NPS) as a teaching assistant, it wasn’t long before I fell in love with teaching. I embraced hands-on learning as a middle and high school English teacher and transition specialist. During that time, I earned an Education Specialist teaching credential and began to work with clients one-on-one after my full days of teaching. I found this personalized learning to be both highly effective and rewarding. Knowing that I wanted to continue down this path to serve students and parents in the most effective and gratifying way possible, I decided to return to higher education and study towards a Master of Arts degree in Special Education. I proudly graduated with honors from California State University, Northridge, and embarked on a growing private practice in my new community of Thousand Oaks. And after many years as an educational therapist, college counselor, and transition specialist, I completed the UCLA College Counseling Certificate program.
Academic challenges have shaped my own story. I was diagnosed with learning disabilities (dyslexia and processing deficits) in 2nd grade and ADHD in 10th grade, and my personal scholastic experiences have led me to embrace these challenges. Helping others to overcome these adversities has led me to dedicate my career to this endeavor—it’s my passion and has become my life’s work.
For the past 16 years, I have been in private practice as an educational therapist and college counselor, bringing to my clients an empathic, enthusiastic and pragmatic approach to their educational journeys. My philosophy has been to meet my students where they are currently functioning and help to develop their skills, providing them with a “toolbox” to meet their challenges head-on and instilling confidence that these methods have worked time and time again.
My expertise combines my formal special education knowledge, practical work understanding, and personal experience as a student that has faced these very adversities. This has led me to a common-sense approach that affords immediate progress and long term academic growth.
I work with middle school students, high school students, and college students with diagnosed and undiagnosed learning issues, including, but not limited to:
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Learning Disabilities (LD or SLD)
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Expressive and Receptive Language Delays
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Dyslexia and related reading disorders
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Auditory processing delays
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Visual processing delays
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ADHD (all 3 subtypes)
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Executive Function Deficits
MY TEACHING PHILOSPHY
Every student has a desire to succeed. However, not every student arrives at success via the same path. I believe it is critical as an educator to look at each student as an individual who possesses a unique combination of skills, challenges, and intellect. I whole-heartedly subscribe to Howard Gardner’s philosophy of multiple intelligences. Some people are logical/mathematical, others are musical, and still, others are intelligent in a more interpersonal way.
I also subscribe to the philosophy that not every student learns best by sitting in a classroom listening to a lecture. Some students learn auditorily, while others learn visually and/or tactile/kinesthetically. It is my primary objective that each student is seen for their strengths as opposed to their weaknesses. All too often, otherwise bright individuals are misunderstood due to poor academic achievement.
Keeping all that in mind, I use research-based teaching methods to work with each client to build a set of compensatory skills that will serve them best in school and in life. When faced with challenging academic tasks, each student should be able to draw from a tool belt outfitted with practical personalized skills. Additionally, I see collaboration with family, teachers, school personnel, and other involved professionals as essential to every student’s success.
Building a sense of trust around a student’s “learning team” is pivotal, and constructing a beneficial learning environment is equally as important. The beauty of one-on-one sessions is that I can more effectively create an environment for my students that will inevitably foster a real sense of security, calm, and mutual respect. It is essential to provide an environment in which students feel safe enough to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. The result will often times garner a positive relationship with their learning environment that frequently translates to the school setting.
Some of the programs that I am trained in and/or pull from for my practice are:
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Wilson Language System (Orton Gillingham based)
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REWARDS Reading Intervention (Orton Gillingham based)
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Step Up to Writing
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Jane Schaffer Writing Workshop
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Words Their Way
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LiPS (by Lindamood Bell)
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Visualizing and Verbalizing (by Lindamood Bell)