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Meet Your Host

Delilah Orpi, M.S. Ed.

Delilah Orpi is a literacy specialist and an experienced educator. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Special Education and a Master of Science in Education from Nova Southeastern University. She has over 10 years of classroom experience in South Florida and Abu Dhabi, working with children from kindergarten to eighth grade, in both regular and special education.

She shares what she learned as a classroom educator working with dyslexic students, and in Orton-Gillingham, Lindamood-Bell, and Top 10 Tools trainings to help other educators create effective literacy lessons by providing high-quality resources based on the science of reading.

Presentations:

  1. How to Use A Sound Wall for Improved Decoding & Encoding
  2. 8 Common Spelling “Rules” Teachers Should Know
  3. How To Structure Your Literacy Block

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Meet Your Speakers

Kimberly Ballou

The Fluency Formula: Four Components That Boost Student Reading Achievement

Kimberly taught for 15 years in the classroom and another 5 years in the online teaching space, working for a top online education company. With two decades of experience in education, she remains dedicated to enhancing reading skills and fostering engagement across all content areas, drawing on extensive classroom experience to create practical and effective tools for educators.

Passionate about empowering educators, Kimberly focuses on creating research-based materials that address the challenges and opportunities in today’s educational landscape. Committed to improving student outcomes, she continues to innovate in creating highly effective teaching resources.

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Jennifer Frick

Moving From Syllables To Phonemes In A Snap! 

Jennifer Frick is a current classroom teacher of sixteen years. She currently is teaching second grade, but she has also taught kindergarten and third grade.

Jennifer believes hands on teaching creates a classroom environment where students love to learn. She lives for a good classroom transformation to really help students engage in lessons. She has been incorporating SOR into her classroom for five years. She loves teaching others about SOR and strategies that they can implement in their own classroom.

Jennifer earned a M.Ed. in Elementary Education from The University of Florida. She lives in Sarasota, Florida with her fiancé and two beagle puppies. She loves sharing ideas and strategies on her Instagram stories at CoffeeChalkTeacher.

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Pryor Rayburn

Sight Words: What is Missing from your Instruction to Transform Irregular Words into Sight Words?

Pryor Rayburn is a Fellow-in-Training and Certified member of the Orton Gillingham Academy and a Certified Academic Language Therapist (CALT) with ALTA. Pryor graduated from Davidson College, and she holds a Master of Education degree in Special Education, Orton Gillingham. Currently Pryor is the Director of the Associate Orton Gillingham training through Key Learning Center. She also creates Structured Literacy digital resources for teachers to use with their students. Prior to her current roles, she was the Director of the Lower School Educational Resource Program at Charlotte Country Day School, an Orton Gillingham tutor, and elementary school teacher.

As former president of the North Carolina Branch of the International Dyslexia Association, she is dedicated to supporting students with dyslexia. Pryor is also passionate about helping all students learn to read with a focus on Structured Literacy in every classroom. Pryor lives in Charlotte, NC with her husband and two children.

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Anna Geiger, M.Ed.

Do’s and Don’ts for Using Decodable Text

Anna Geiger, M.Ed., has classroom experience from first through fifth grade. After earning her Master’s degree in Curriculum & Instruction, she began caring for her children at home. Now Anna serves educators through her blog, The Measured Mom, where she shares hands-on lessons, thoughtful articles, and printable resources.

Anna is Orton-Gillingham certified and has a Reading Science graduate certificate from Mount St. Joseph University.

She hosts a weekly podcast called Triple R Teaching, and she provides thousands of resources to members of her membership site for PreK-3rd grade educators.

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Rindy Roberts

Let’s Decode! Simple Tips to Improve Students’ Decoding Skills

Rindy is a reading intervention teacher/creator of literacy content at Learning With Heart. Her passion lies in educating children on how to read and providing educators with simple tips based on the science of reading.

She earned her M.Ed. in reading and has been trained through IMSE and Really Great Reading. Rindy taught 1st grade 17 years before transitioning into a reading specialist. Recently, she has taken various courses to further her understanding of Dyslexia and how she can help students that face reading challenges.

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Kaley - Leaping into Learning

Mapping and NOT Memorizing words: 5 steps to help your learners map those words!

Kaley is a literacy specialist with over 15 years of experience in both private and public schools. Kaley left the classroom in 2016 and now provides support for parents, teachers and children who are learning and/or struggling to read.

After seeing the need for both multisensory reading across the globe, Kaley made it part of her life purpose to give EVERY child a chance to read. She is has her M.Ed and is Orton-Gillingham trained that focuses on multisensory and explicit instruction!

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Lisa Parnello

Dyslexia for Beginners

Lisa Parnello is a dyslexia expert with over 18 years of experience including public and private schools, focusing on students with learning differences such as dyslexia and dysgraphia. She provides 1-on-1 dyslexia therapy and supports parents and educators through online courses and the Dyslexia Devoted podcast.

She earned her M.Ed. in special education and has since dedicated her life to helping the most struggling learners. She is a certified Wilson Dyslexia Therapist and a Wilson Credentialed Trainer. Lisa served as the Lower School Director of a school for learning differences in Palo Alto, CA before expanding Parnello Education Services. Lisa also trains and guides educators as they develop into successful special education instructors through mentoring and instructional coaching.

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Heather O'Donnell

5 Strategies You Can Teach To Improve Your Students’ Writing Skills… Tomorrow!

Heather O’Donnell MS.Ed and Ed.M began her career as a classroom teacher. Working in both special and general education classroom settings, she left the classroom in 2018 to open New Paltz Multisensory, an online and in person tutoring practice in New Paltz, NY. 

After identifying a need for private multisensory reading instruction in her community, the practice has grown to include a team of 16 tutors providing online and in person multisensory reading, writing and math instruction to students in over 10 states. All providers are certified and highly trained in using the Orton-Gillingham approach to diagnostically provide explicit instruction so that kids learn to love learning again!

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Amy Lawrence

Gamify your Science of Reading Lessons!

Amy has been a teacher for 22 years, and a teacher creator for 10 years. She wants to bring fun back into your classroom with engaging resources! 

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Brooke Vitale

How to Align Your Decodables

Brooke Vitale is a children’s book editor, author, and proud founder of Charge Mommy Books. Over the course of her 15+ years at top New York publishers, Brooke Vitale has edited thousands of books.

Today, Brooke works as a freelance children’s book editor and runs brookevitale.com, a website dedicated to helping aspiring authors navigate the publishing and self-publishing industry. Since beginning her freelance career, Brooke has helped more than 1,000 authors achieve their dream of publishing a book.

But Brooke is also a prolific writer in her own right. She has worked with top children’s book publishers including Penguin Random House, Scholastic, HarperCollins, and Disney Book Group to publish more than a hundred books.

Brooke lives in Connecticut. When she is not writing or editing she can be found playing Charge Mommy in the backyard with her two young sons.

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Marisa Ware

Executive Functions + Literacy: The Inextricable Connection

Marisa is an elementary and middle school literacy specialist, providing 1:1 support in the areas of reading, writing, spelling, and executive functioning. She received her BA in Behavioral Science, MA in Childhood Education, and will earn a Professional Certificate in Learning Differences and Neurodiversity later this year. She is LETRS, Orton-Gillingham, and Hochman Method trained. 

Marisa is committed to enhancing students’ literacy and executive function skills through targeted instruction and multisensory practice tailored to each student’s individual needs.

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