Bilingual Classroom Solutions for SIFE and EBs

After spending a year teaching 4th grade at a community-based school in Honduras, I served as teacher, academic designer, and researcher for 4.5 years at a public school in the Bronx exclusively for overaged Students with Interrupted Formal Education (SIFE), immigrants, and refugees. I now work as the content developer for a landmark New York State curriculum designed for SIFE with Developing Literacy.

During my work in the Bronx, I created and developing my own native-language (Spanish) literacy curriculum for unschooled Latino student sand Latino SIFE who had no literacy in their native language. I taught these students how to read and write in Spanish for the first time. My curriculum was NOT ESL, but rather the pre-cursor to ELS: the native-language foundations needed for eventual second-language acquisition.

In other words, I taught and created Pre-K to 2nd-grade content for 15- to 21-year-olds in Spanish.

Yet to be added

Five-time university and graduate-school guest lecturer. Presentations include:

1) Columbia University, Teachers College:

"Native-Language Needs of Latino Immigrants, SIFE, and Unschooled Youth in our Public Schools: What Works, What Doesn't, and Where Do We Go Next?" (Given twice)

2) Columbia University, Teachers College:

"Learning to Read and Write: Strategies for Teaching Phonemic Awareness and Letter-Sound Correspondence"


3) City College of New York:

"Literacy Assessments: Running Records and the Classroom"


Professional Development Presentations:

1) "Classroom Strategies for Struggling Readers"

2) "Running Records in the Classroom"

NYU: BA in English Literature, language studies in French

Columbia University, Teachers College: Master's in International Education Development

Originally from San Antonio, Texas (Go Spurs!), I'm a passionate teacher, curriculum developer, and researcher who loves seeing her students develop interest and grow throughout the year.

As the creator of my own native-language (Spanish) literacy program as well as Spanish literacy curriculum, I have thoroughly enjoyed facing the challenge of creating materials that are age-appropriate and culturally appropriate yet at the same time at the early levels of my students.