Ms. Beth O'Connor Reading Specialist
Welcome to the Reading Center at HOD! Ms. Renner and I provide direct instruction to students needing extra help in learning how to read. Our program is a regular education service provided by the Norfolk Public Schools. First and second graders are referred by their classroom teachers, assessed by the reading specialists, and brought into the program with parental permission. We also support Kindergarten by working in those classrooms on a weekly basis. Our small groups meet in The Reading Center, Room 23, or in classrooms 3-5 times a week for 30-minute sessions. Instruction is based on individual diagnostic testing, and students are placed in groups according to their specific needs. We focus primarily on decoding, comprehension, and fluency, as we try to instill greater confidence and a love of reading in our students. I graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in Comparative Literature. My first teaching position was as a French and German teacher at The O'Neal School in Southern Pines, NC. After earning my Masters in Education at Lesley University, I became an elementary classroom teacher in North Berwick, Maine for four years. That experience helped me to realize my true calling was teaching reading, so I pursued a Masters in Reading at Bridgewater State College. I was a Reading Specialist at the Freeman Centennial School in Norfolk for eight years before joining the H. Olive Day staff four years ago. I live in Franklin with my husband and we have two children. Our son is a sophomore at Syracuse University, and our daughter is a junior at Franklin High School. |
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