, Author at My Learning Springboard

Myrna Domit

October 30, 2023

With over two decades woven into the rich tapestry of journalism and international communications, Myrna Domit integrates substantive expertise in strategic communication and innovative storytelling into every project she touches. Her career path has not only traversed crucial roles within internationally recognized organizations but also involved on-the-ground work with NGOs in diverse and often tumultuous environments, including Haiti and the Middle East.

In the realm of global news and politics, Myrna served the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), providing essential communication support during pivotal moments and crises. She also brought stories to life for The New York Times in Brazil, where she employed digital media to engage audiences, and covered a plethora of socio-political issues for the Associated Press in Haiti amidst a backdrop of economic upheaval.

Myrna Domit has a Master’s degree in Multimedia from the Columbia Journalism School and a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Latin American Studies from Tufts University. Proficient in French, Spanish, and Portuguese, Myrna skillfully navigates various cultural and linguistic landscapes, enhancing her capacity for international communication and collaboration. Her dedication to continuous learning and professional development is demonstrated by her completion of the Harvard Bok Teaching Certificate and her ongoing pursuit of an Educational Consulting Certificate at the University of California, Irvine.

Myrna’s passion extends to community-driven projects, demonstrated not only in her international communications work but also through meaningful on-the-ground involvement. Her collaboration with the NGO, Apt Art, on the “Paint Outside The Lines” project in Lebanon was a vivid initiative designed to foster coexistence among youth from Syria, Palestine, and Lebanon, uniting them to create murals across Beirut and within refugee camps as symbols of unity and shared aspirations.

She gracefully intertwines journalistic acumen, strategic communications insight, and a heartfelt dedication to community and narrative building through her broad-spanning career in communications.

Cameron Skinner

October 12, 2023

Cameron Skinner is a dedicated educator with over ten years of experience working in the education sector. He has traveled the world tutoring students, teaching courses, creating curricula, conducting workshops, observing classrooms, and leading education organizations. He now shares his knowledge, experience, and expertise through his education consultancy, where he works with students and families worldwide.

Cameron has taught multiple grade levels at schools in the United States, Africa, and Europe. Most recently, he served as the Singapore Math Coordinator for PreK through Grade 8 at TASIS Portugal, where he also taught fourth grade and acted as curriculum lead for his grade level. Prior to that, he worked as a teacher and private educator in Colorado, and as an experiential educator for Where There Be Dragons in Senegal and Rwanda. He also served as the Associate Director of Friends of Guéoul, a non-profit that provides scholarships to hundreds of young women in Senegal. In addition, he spent two years in Rwanda as a Peace Corps volunteer, teaching English as a Second Language.

Cameron specializes in teaching math from 3rd through 9th grades and writing from 6th grade through the doctoral level. He also tutors students in the Reading, Writing, and English sections of the SAT and ACT. He is especially adept at teaching Singapore Math and Core Knowledge content. In addition, he has many years of research experience in the Social Sciences.

Cameron earned his B.A. in English from Tufts University, his TEFL certification from the University of Toronto, his iPGCE from the University of Sheffield, and his M.A. in International Education from New York University. He has also completed his certification in IB Mathematics, Applications and Interpretation, Categories 1 and 2. Currently, he is pursuing his coaching certification and a College Counseling Certificate from UCLA to expand the support he offers to students and families.

Engaging with Nonfiction Texts

October 3, 2023 Brad Hoffman

Engaging with nonfiction texts

Students are often drawn to nonfiction texts, eagerly exploring images of space, animals, the human body, life in ancient times, or collecting stats about their favorite sports heroes. The vibrant photos, diagrams, and charts help synthesize so much new information into digestible facts. But reading nonfiction paragraphs is a demanding task that requires readers to independently determine how all of that information fits together.

Throughout the pandemic, during remote learning, and then upon returning to regular classes, I started to notice that my students were not really engaging with nonfiction articles. They were able to answer comprehension questions and plan presentations, but they were simply copying the same facts and presenting them again without really thinking about what the texts were saying. In this way, the students were not learning the content. Working with two other colleagues, we developed a protocol for teaching how to read nonfiction texts so that our students could learn the content and develop strategies for how to be a reader of any nonfiction text.

What makes nonfiction different?

Fictional stories tend to follow a predictable pattern that we can teach our students. Most stories typically begin with an introduction to the main character’s life, then a presentation of a conflict, the tension rises, and finally the conflict is resolved. As students mature, they will experience more complex stories with more conflicts along the way to the main conflict’s resolution and they will also learn to negotiate humor, flashbacks, and other jumps in the main structure; but the general arc of the story is still there. Readers can see how the character’s actions affect the conflict, so the cause and effect stays clearly within the boundaries of the main conflict.

Since nonfiction does not follow a story arc, readers do not know how one piece of information is connected to the next. Writers give us clues, like transition words and conjunctions, to help us see when one one piece of information is an example, or a result, or a contradiction to the preceding sentence. In the way that we can teach fiction readers that we can make sense of new information as it relates to a typical story arc, we can also teach nonfiction readers that paragraphs typically begin with a topic sentence and then supporting evidence is provided to further explain or bolster the topic or claim. However, because nonfiction writing tends to have longer, more complex sentences, we need to teach our nonfiction readers how to make sense of each sentence and its connection to the main idea.

Mary J Schleppegrell writes about the language demands of different texts and the ways in which they diverge from typical spoken language in her book The Language of Schooling: A Functional Linguistics Perspective, 2004. Schleppegrell explains that writers of nonfiction texts, like articles and essays, create densely compacted sentences, using conjunctions, transition words, and clauses, in ways that are not intuitive for most students (because it’s different from how we speak). Teaching readers how language is used in nonfiction writing empowers them to read these dense sentences fluently and supports them to make connections and inferences for deeper engagement with the content. Ultimately close reading of nonfiction texts will support students as writers of nonfiction as well. And specific instruction surrounding sentence fluency and these varied structures requires studying grammar, including parts of speech and advanced punctuation use. In this way students learn how writers built nonfiction sentences, so as readers they can then deconstruct sentences in order to develop deeper content understandings.

Consider this paragraph (From Howard Zinn’s A Young People’s History of the United States, 2005):

Even as the United States involved itself in conflicts around the world in the latter half of the 1800s, it remained determined to acquire every last acre of Indigenous land within its borders. By the late 1800s, policies such as allotment had drastically reduced the remaining Indigenous land base. Still, Indigenous nations had home lands and reservations where they continued to live in their traditional ways. The existence of Indigenous people, with a prior claim to the land whose values, languages, and lifeways that differed from those of European American society, was a constant source of anxiety to white settlers.

This paragraph follows the typical pattern of introducing a claim. The claim was then followed up with supporting evidence. The writer adds language to help the reader understand how these supporting details work together. However, most of the sentences in this paragraph are complex sentences. Reading complex sentences requires the reader to determine how the clauses in one sentence are related to each other, to then draw conclusions about how the following sentences fit together.

Here are some language shifts that readers can learn how to navigate:

Transition words – These words signal how the current sentence connects to the information that came before. For example, the transition word so signals a cause/effect, but the transition word contrastingly would show that the following sentence is in opposition to the preceding sentence.
Dependent Clauses – Pay attention to the two parts of the sentence to see how one part of the sentence connects to the other.
Even as…, … . Even though… , …
When … , … . Since… , … . If…, …
Embedded information – Authors embed who, what, where, why, when, how to give us more information about a topic, but the sentence is a complete sentence without that embedded clause. So if the sentence feels confusing, we can first read it without that parenthetical clause at first.
Vocabulary – Definitions for vocabulary are often embedded, but sometimes they are referred to from previous sentences. Students should monitor their understanding of new terms.
Nominalization – Nominalization is most often used by turning a verb or adjective from the preceding sentence into a noun in the following sentence to say more about it. I used nominalization earlier when I wrote: However, most of the sentences in this paragraph are complex sentences. Reading complex sentences requires the reader to determine how the clauses in one sentence are related to each other, to then draw conclusions about how the following sentences fit together.


Even as the United States involved itself in conflicts around the world in the latter half of the 1800s, it remained determined to acquire every last acre of Indigenous land within its borders. By the late 1800s, policies such as allotment had drastically reduced the remaining Indigenous land base. Still, Indigenous nations had home lands and reservations where they continued to live in their traditional ways. The existence of Indigenous people, with a prior claim to the land whose values, languages, and lifeways that differed from those of European American society, was a constant source of anxiety to white settlers.	This shows us two actions that are happening at the same time. The use of the phrase even as makes it sound as if the two actions in this phrase are in opposition, but a closer reading reveals that the two actions are the same, just in two different locations.
	If the author says “such as __,” we have learned this word before. Do you remember it? If not, go back and find that word so you know what the author is talking about.
	The transition word still is used to show that the information in this sentence is in conflict or opposition to what was discussed in the preceding sentence.
	Turning an adjective or a verb into a noun is called nominalization. We take a verb from a previous sentence and turn it into a noun to say more about that idea. Writers often choose a new, synonymous verb to avoid repetition.
	The information in between the commas is extra information that is embedded into an idea that would make sense without it. The embedded information adds description that can be helpful for the reader, if read with appropriate pauses.

How teachers and parents can help readers navigate complex language structures

As a writer for this article, I am using many grammatical terms, like conjunctions, clauses, nouns, and verbs; but I suggest that, while using the proper names with students is important, teaching students how to use these language moves is the more essential skill. As teachers we can say things like “add more description” or “be more clear.” Students often benefit from direct instruction in how authors use language in the service of adding details or being more clear. In this way, when we support our students as readers of nonfiction, we are simultaneously helping them develop their skills as nonfiction writers. Instructing the specific vocabulary helps students to have a better way of describing the “architecture” of language and deconstructing text.

Shared Reading

In the same way teachers hone in on an author’s craft when teaching narrative writing strategies like how to incorporate inner thinking, setting details, or descriptive actions, teachers and parents can engage in close readings with their students in order to explore author’s craft in nonfiction texts as well.

Students can often struggle to fluently read complex sentences. Students often run out of breath before they get to the period and can wind up stopping at awkward places in sentences, which can affect their understanding of what they read. Readers often require direct instruction on pausing at commas in order to take a breath before completing the rest of the idea.

Students can often read so quickly that they get to the end of the paragraph without any sense of what they read. Shared reading is also an excellent time to model stopping and thinking about each sentence before moving on to the next. In addition, readers often benefit from instruction on how to read embedded clauses. It often helps for readers to see and hear what a sentence is saying without the embedded clause to get a handle on the central message of the sentence before putting the extra information back.

Once the students have grasped the meaning of the individual sentences, they can see how the sentences fit together to support a claim. Now they can start using their own transition and explaining words to identify and justify the claim and the supporting sentences in their own words.

Using Text Features to help Comprehension

Paying attention to all of those language moves can be exhausting! Fortunately, nonfiction texts are usually divided into sections with subheadings. Students can learn to use the main idea of a section (the subheadings) as a guide to check their understanding of individual paragraphs. In general, a student can say, “I know this section as about (subheading) so I just have to figure out how this paragraph is connected to the topic.”

With all of this in mind, my colleagues and I came up with a protocol to help our elementary readers prepare their minds for nonfiction reading, monitor their understanding, and then write about what they learned.

How to Read Nonfiction

BEFORE Reading – We look for the MAIN IDEA

Read the Title and Subtitles
Read the first sentence
Now you know the MAIN IDEA. It might help to write it down.

DURING Reading –

We read with our eyes, and mind, open for examples (in the book, article, chapter, or section)
Highlight or underline examples that show the main idea (in the book, article, chapter, or section)
Check our understanding of each sentence in a paragraph paying attention to connecting/explaining words, extra information, or new vocabulary.

AFTER Reading –

Write about the examples that show the main idea.

Claim: ______________________

1. ___________________
2. ___________________
3. ___________________

By Rachel Levinsky, Learning Specialist and Private Tutor, Brad Hoffman, Board Certified Educational Planner and Learning Specialist, Faya Hoffman, Board Certified Educational Planner and Learning Specialist, and Laurie Gross, M.A.T. and Reading Specialist

Summarizing Fiction Effectively

October 2, 2023 Brad Hoffman

Many teachers and families will notice that their seemingly simple questions, “What’s your book about?” or “What’s happening in your book?” are not met with brief, comprehensible answers. Students’ long, complicated answers about their books demonstrate their difficulty with summarizing fiction and effectively sharing their understanding about what they’ve read.

Elements of Fiction

At the earliest stages, children are told that the main elements of a story are the plot, the characters, and the setting. In order for students to be successful readers and effective at summarizing fiction texts, it helps to first explore the basic structure of most fiction stories. Many teachers refer to the plot as the story mountain, which is an easy way for students to see how tension rises throughout almost all stories or fiction books.

Most stories typically begin with an introduction to the main character’s life. Then a conflict is presented. Teachers often describe the conflict as the problem in the story, but it can simply be something the character wants to happen or needs to do. Then the tension rises as the character attempts to solve the problem. Finally the conflict is resolved. As students mature, they will experience more complex stories with smaller conflicts along the way to the main conflict’s resolution.

Summarizing Fiction While Reading

Summarizing fiction while in the midst of reading is different from summarizing at the end of a book, but there are some similarities and also some common errors that students make.

It is not uncommon for students to be halfway through a book without being able to name the main character or what the character wants. Or, there are students who know the central problem, but they struggle to see how the chapters connect to the main idea. So it is helpful for readers to summarize throughout a book because it helps them keep track of what is happening. These short summaries are helpful for teachers and families to check that the reader has a sense of what is happening and why. As students read more complex chapter books, they should always have an understanding of how each chapter fits into the general arc of the story; in other words, how the parts fit into the whole.

During reading assessments, students are often asked to tell about the most important events of a story. I have noticed that many students are unsure of what is important and what isn’t important when they are reading, and that’s why we often get long explanations or seemingly disparate pieces of information that are confusing. For some students, the most important information is the conversation two characters had. For other students, the important information is the funny moment that made them laugh. Therefore, I ask students to name the main idea of the chapter instead of the important information.

When learning how to name a main idea, students benefit from direct instruction about the difference between a main idea of a chapter, which is a more general statement that encompasses several actions that happened, versus small, specific details. When chapters have titles, the title is often a clue about the main idea. It helps for all learners to see that a main idea is something that gets repeated or is discussed for a large part of a chapter, whereas specific details are mentioned once (but can certainly support the main idea). The skill of distinguishing an overarching big idea from specific details is an essential skill that readers will be able to apply to nonfiction reading as well.

Summarizing fiction after a reader has finished is a different task. Once the problem has been resolved, the reader can identify what information was important because they can see which actions directly led to the problem being solved. While a summary written in the midst of reading seeks to explain how the current events fit with the main problem, a summary at the end of the book maps out the steps that led to the resolution.


When summarizing throughout a book	When summarizing at the end of a book
Name the title of the book and the author.	Name the title of the book and the author.
Name the main character.	Name the main character.
Name the setting (time and place) if it is essential to understanding what the book is about.	Name the setting (time and place) if it is essential to understanding what the book is about.
Name the main problem.	Name the main problem.
Name the main idea of the chapter and how it connects to the main problem of the book.	Name the steps the character took to resolve the problem

Before writing, many students benefit from direct instruction on how to embed so much information into one sentence. The Somebody-Wanted-But-So strategy is an effective starting framework for summarizing fiction texts. A typical summary sentence starter might look like this:

In title of book, by author, character wanted . . . but . . .

Title of book, by author, is about character who wanted . . . but . . .

Summaries need to pack a lot of information into a few sentences. Many students will need practice with the grammar and punctuation associated with more complex sentence structures.

Leveling up students’ summaries

In order for students to demonstrate a high level of independent comprehension, they should be able to infer and express their own ideas about the text. A highly effective summary includes students’ ideas about the characters, events, or author’s craft showcasing their inferential thinking skills.

When we hear students gasp, laugh, or talk to their characters, we know they are deeply engaging with their books beyond basic comprehension. As readers, we infer when we collect clues authors have mentioned but haven’t directly stated. Students can demonstrate a stronger level of comprehension by summarizing fiction in a way that uses evidence from the text to defend their own ideas about the text.

Here are some typical inferences (though there are many more) students will wrestle with. These examples are listed in a general order of rising complexity:

Predict what they think will happen next.
Think about a character’s feelings or personality.
Develop theories about character relationships.
Interpret the meaning of new words or expressions.
Learn life lessons from the book.
Identify overarching themes.
Name symbols that are repeated.
Wonder about an author’s style or writing choices.

When we challenge students to share their own thoughts about a chapter or book, it is essential that students provide evidence from the text to support their ideas. In our experience, whenever we’ve simply asked students what they thought about their reading, they often share their predictions. Children can develop very creative ideas for their predictions, so requiring evidence to support their theories helps keep their predictions grounded and provides a clear check on their independent comprehension.

We have found that our students almost always need direct instruction and guided practice for how to manage any of the previously identified inferring skills. The more students have the opportunity to practice these skills during guided practice, the more confident they will become to take risks and reveal their thoughts about their reading. Below you will find some suggestions to help develop your student’s skill set in summarizing fiction.

Types of Inferences


Types of Inferences	Supporting Practices
Predict what they think will happen next	Readers can observe character actions or thoughts to notice what a character might be planning to do.
Think about a character’s feelings or personality	Characters may be feeling one way in a moment but those feelings might change throughout the book. Generally a character’s personality trait stays the same and can be proven with several examples from a book or across a series. Students benefit from direct instruction on personality trait words so they can use the vocabulary correctly and independently. Games like charades are a fun way to practice personality trait vocabulary.
Develop theories about character relationships	Readers can notice how a character talks to or reacts to others to gather clues about what kind of relationship a character has with others.
Interpret the meaning of new words or expressions	Figuring out the meaning of unfamiliar words is like finding the missing piece to a puzzle. First we can decode the word to hear how it might be related to other words. For example, if the new word is expansive, we can think about how it might be connected to the word expand. Next we think about what the sentences around the new word are talking about. Once we know the context, we can think about words that would work in the same situation to give us some clues about what the new word might mean.
Learn life lessons from the book	We can first notice the lesson a character learns, but we may have to change the words to make it a more general statement so that the lesson is applicable beyond the book. For example, a student might say that Zoey, in Zoey and Sassafras, learned how to take care of a baby dragon by testing out different kinds of foods. Then the student can expand the idea to say we can all learn how to use scientific experimentation strategies to answer a question.
Identify overarching themes	Students often connect the life lessons to possible themes since they can apply to all of us. Many students benefit from lists of common themes, but they should be able to justify how that theme is demonstrated in the book.
Name symbols that are repeated	Readers can observe which words or ideas are repeated throughout the book. Possessions that are important to characters, or items that keep coming back, often serve as a symbol to represent a character’s hope, experience, or lesson.
Wonder about an author’s style or writing choices	Authors often have a way of writing that sets them apart from others. Some authors use a lot of similes to help us imagine. Other authors write with very short sentences. Some authors write long detailed descriptions of the setting. These authors make these stylistic choices to help us as readers. Readers can reflect on how the author’s style impacted them as they read the book.

In order for students to develop several defensible ideas about their reading, it helps to read several books in the same series. Reading across a series enables a reader to pay more attention to new events and vocabulary since they already know all of the characters. When your students have developed theories about their characters and books, they can include those ideas to demonstrate they understood and engaged with their books.

Summarizing fiction is an incredibly complex task. Readers must determine what information is most important or central to the main idea of the text, reconstructing how events fit into the overall plot. When writing a summary, they must pack a lot of information (who, what, why) into a few sentences. Finally, readers can be challenged to share their own thoughts about the events of a book. Distilling all these ideas into a few, clear sentences takes a lot of practice. The next time you ask a young reader what their book is all about, consider the attentional, executive function, and language skills that were involved in forming the response! Writing effective and succinct summaries takes years of elementary school practice with lots of opportunities for direct instruction and timely feedback!

Andres Parra

September 30, 2023

From a young age, Andres Parra has felt a desire to save lives in the medical field, enamored by the complex imaging machines and human anatomy figures he saw in the classroom and at the doctor’s office. As he grew up, he found he also had a penchant for mathematics, a skill strongly fostered by both of his parents who are proud engineers. As a result of all this, Andres has found a passion for Biomedical Engineering, the perfect blend of math, engineering, design, and biology, which he currently studies at Johns Hopkins University as a Senior.

Andres has always felt the spark of helping others understand the numerical and scientific laws which govern everything around us. Beginning with helping math classmates unofficially, he has since tutored in math in high school as part of Mu Alpha Theta and helped his classmates in college understand the concepts behind their homework. He understands that learning is not merely a static information dump, but a dynamic interaction between the content and the student’s own strengths and background knowledge. In his work with middle and high school students, Andres tutors biology, advanced math through calculus III, and standardized test preparation for the ACT or SAT.

When not tutoring or studying for his degree, Andres enjoys spending quality time with his family and friends, enjoying activities such as Ultimate Frisbee, Spike-Ball, Catan, card games, and more.