About Us

Lucía was a dual language teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area for many years before joining the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. She pioneered the implementation of a balanced approach to teaching literacy in Spanish in schools across the Pacific North West and elsewhere. Lucía has supported hundreds of dual language and bilingual schools and classrooms across the country and internationally. During her tenure as a teacher, she led many professional development opportunities for teachers across her district and elsewhere. She was a teacher mentor and instructional coach working alongside both new and veteran teachers. This year she will once again return to teaching in a 4th grade dual language classroom.

Lucía was also a faculty member at the Stanford Graduate School of Education STEP program, where she supported bilingual teacher candidates in their development as early teachers. She holds a Masters degree in bilingual teaching and education from the University of California at Santa Cruz and a Master of Education in Education Leadership from Teachers College at Columbia University.

Jen began and continues her career teaching in New York City working specifically as a special education teacher and with students learning English as a New Language. Her main focus recently has been finding research based practices that allow her to reach all readers - specifically ones who benefit from additional support with word reading.

Between teaching appointments she spent eight years as a senior lead staff developer for the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project working with schools regionally, nationally and internationally. In addition to working with individual schools, Jen also supported district wide initiatives and lead institutes for school leadership and coaches. She enjoys working alongside administrators, coaches, and lead teachers to develop school wide goals to improve student achievement and teacher practice. Several of her schools have experiences significant gains in reading achievement across grades throughout their partnership.

She is a co-author of The How-To Guide to Nonfiction Writing, Grade 2 as well as Word Builders, part of the Grade 2 phonics curriculum by TCRWP. Jen also uses her background in graphic design to support visual learning for students - which means a lot of chart and tool making!