Christina Ross

I've been working in education since 2013, and my journey into this field was deeply personal. Growing up, I wasn't the strongest reader, but I had a reading teacher at the high school level who supported me even though I was kind of beyond the age where support is typically given. That experience impacted me so much that I initially got into special education, even though I wasn't a special education student myself. It's a degree that opens a lot of opportunities. From there, I realized I really wanted to focus more on English and also support general education students who kind of fall between the cracks. Today, I work as a literacy specialist where I provide direct student support through push-in or pull-out instruction, oversee all the diagnostic and benchmark testing and progress monitoring for students throughout the year, and use that data to identify students who can get Tier 2 or Tier 3 intervention support. I also oversee all the teaching assistants, the paraprofessionals in the building who support general education classes, to ensure they're able to give appropriate literacy support and behavioral support to students. Since they don't really have teaching degrees, I help educate them on appropriate literacy instruction and problem solve with students of concern. My main area of expertise is science of reading instruction and implementing it in the classroom on a day-to-day basis, supporting other professionals in the building to understand and be able to do it as well by modeling instruction for them to see or giving professional development to the staff. Beyond my primary role, I'm also an adjunct online English professor for Manor College where I teach English 101 and 102, maintaining the classroom web page and grading. I also work for Elwin, which is early intervention, where I support a few kids who are getting early intervention through the state.