English and Language Arts (ELA) Archives

Susan Selvin

October 10, 2022

Susan Selvin has over twenty years of experience teaching in college preparatory middle and high schools, including L.A.’s prestigious Buckley School and Greens Farms Academy in Connecticut. With a Ph.D. in French Language and Literature from UCLA, she takes particular joy in her private tutoring work with her students, creating personalized instruction that encourages them to capitalize on their unique talents and interests. Alongside content related tutoring, she emphasizes executive function skills – including time management, organization, and prioritization of tasks – to maximize her students’ success in all areas of learning.

In addition to her expertise teaching the Humanities across high school and middle school classrooms, she’s guided students through the college application process, assisting with essay writing and standardized test preparation, including the AP French Language and Culture exam and the verbal portions of the SAT. Susan also holds a TESOL certificate from UCLA and has taught introductory and remedial high school English courses, including reading comprehension and writing instruction for students for whom English is a second language.

Susan approaches learning with patience, kindness, and flexibility – a teaching philosophy developed over a long career in the classroom (and from having two grown daughters of her own!). In her spare time, she loves reading contemporary fiction, running in Central Park, and exploring New York’s many museums.

Emma Kash

October 10, 2022

Emma Kash always dreamed of having her own classroom as a child and looked up to her elementary school teachers. She made those dreams come true after graduating in 2014 from Keene State College, in Keene, NH, with Bachelor of Science degrees in elementary and special education, and a third major in English. She received her NCATE accredited certification from the state of New Hampshire in elementary education for grades K-6 and special education for grades K-12. After graduation, Emma moved back to her hometown near Albany, New York, and received her NYS certification in childhood education for grades 1-6 as well as teaching students with disabilities for grades 1-6. Shortly after, she began long-term substituting as a special educator in the Albany area. By 2015, Emma decided to fulfill another dream of hers and move to NYC, where she joined the Department of Education and has worked as a special educator in grades K-5 for the last 7 years. During the first year, Emma worked in Mill Basin, Brooklyn as a kindergarten teacher and Special Education Teacher Support Services provider for kindergarten and 1st grade students. From there, she moved to teach in Harlem at P.S. 123, Mahalia Jackson School, as a 2^nd grade special education teacher in an inclusion classroom (ICT). In 2017, she moved to P.S. 124, Yung Wing Elementary, in Chinatown. At P.S. 124, she has taught grades 3-5 as a special educator in the inclusion classrooms (ICT). Emma has many years of experience working with students with ADHD, students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), students with speech and language-based learning disabilities, and students with a variety of other learning challenges. Through her work as a special educator and learning specialist, she has taught lessons and skill building focused on developing executive functions, along with modifying the academic curriculum to fit the needs of her students.

Emma Kash regularly engages in professional development. In 2022, Emma was trained in grading the NYS ELA test and has since graded 3^rd through 5^th grade assessments. This experience was especially useful in her classroom as well as her private tutoring in order to incorporate test preparation into her teaching. Emma is also trained in the Wilson Intervention Program, which included the Fundations and Just Words programs. These Orton-Gillingham based programs help students with phonics and word work, including a variety of multisensory decoding strategies. Emma also attended Social Emotional Learning (SEL) professional development and has joined her school RULER team, which promotes incorporating social-emotional learning and strategies into schools and communities. Though Emma specializes in literacy and word work, she has successfully implemented NYC math curricula while teaching in the elementary school setting. For several years, Emma has been using the SAVVAS Realize Investigations Math curriculum, aligned with Common Core Standards. In the past, she used Go Math and prior to that has used Engage NY Math, Eureka Math, and IXL Learning.

Recently, Emma has been attending SUNY Oneonta through a remote Master of Education program in literacy education. By the Spring of 2023, Emma will graduate with a Master of Education degree in literacy education and will apply for certification in literacy. Another goal for Emma is to one day help other educators best improve their literacy teaching strategies and support students with literacy needs.

When Emma is not teaching, she is enjoying cooking at home in Astoria, Queens with friends and traveling the world. Emma seeks to inspire her students to follow their hopes and dreams by expanding on her own.

Charlotte Harary-Shechtman

August 24, 2022

Charlotte Harary-Shechtman’s passion for working with children began from an early age. She is excited when she gets to guide students into reaching a level of self-efficacy in order to enhance learning and confidence. Charlotte believes in connecting to each child she works with and the importance of trust in the teacher-student relationship. Doing so creates a safe space for the child to ask questions and learn with comfort. She works to foster a greater understanding of the student’s unique capabilities and needs. She believes in building on students’ strengths in order to help them overcome their challenges. Encouraging the growth mindset is cultivated through the language she uses, instilling the belief in every child that they have the potential to succeed.

After much experience working with children, she strongly believes in differentiating instruction according to an individual’s learning needs and supporting their learning style. Adapting to a curriculum and creating strategies to better process information is one of her strengths. She incorporates unique ways for students to learn by tapping into the visual and kinesthetic components of a lesson and having the children learn in an experiential and hands-on way.

Charlotte Harary-Shechtman received a dual Bachelor’s Degree in Early Childhood Education and Special Education from CUNY Brooklyn College. She went on to achieve her Master’s degree in Childhood Special Education from Bank Street College of Education and graduated in 2019 while also obtaining her professional license.

For the past 10 years, Charlotte has been working with children of all ages. Over time, she worked in summer day camp, a variety of public and private schools as well as one to one tutoring. She worked as an assistant teacher in a classroom of three year olds for two years at Bean Sprouts Preschool in Park Slope. Most recently, Charlotte taught at The Shefa School, a school for students with language based learning challenges. During her time there, she worked with students ranging from 1st to 5th grade. She led a homeroom class of 13 students teaching lessons related to Social Emotional Learning, Judaic Studies, and writing while simultaneously teaching her own reading and math groups. Additionally, she worked with a team to develop curricula and modify lessons to ensure her students received the instruction that best suited their needs. Charlotte has worked with many evidence-based practices including Writing Revolution (formerly known as the Hochman method), PAF (Preventing Academic Failure), an Orton-Gillingham based program, Jump Math and Marilyn Zecher’s Multisensory Math & More program. Helping students learn how to set goals for one’s self, plan, prioritize, organize and multitask, are some skills Charlotte brings to the table in conjunction with her adaptation to lessons.

When she isn’t engaged in the education world, Charlotte enjoys spending her time with family, friends and being active. Exercising, playing tennis, and being outdoors, are some of her favorites. Charlotte is a lifelong learner who continues to educate herself on developing, preparing and instructing individualized curricula for students with learning differences.

Laura Yumi Snell

July 14, 2021

A graduate of Harvard University and UC Davis, Laura Yumi Snell has two decades of experience teaching and motivating students of all ages to help them achieve their goals. Growing up bilingual, Laura attended schools both in the US and in Japan, and she draws on her diverse educational background to hand-pick the best pedagogical methods that align with each student’s learning needs.

Laura teaches English, Japanese, writing, math, and ACT/SAT prep as a private tutor, in classrooms, and in corporate settings. Her students have attended top private and public schools in the prestigious NYC school system, and most have been accepted into the universities of their choice, including Ivy League schools and elite international institutions. She’s especially proud of her students with learning challenges who worked extra hard to get into their dream schools.

Simultaneously passionate and patient, Laura offers her students a creative, innovative approach to learning that guides them to think for themselves, giving them the skills and confidence they need to excel in all subjects. Her teaching philosophy emphasizes both the discipline required for learning something new and the importance of finding joy and excitement throughout the process. If a student can make a game out of studying, they’re much more likely to make it a healthy lifelong habit!

Before she was a tutor, Laura Yumi Snell had an artistic career as a classical pianist, performing and competing around the world from a very young age. She learned how to balance schoolwork, rehearsals, and extracurriculars by the time she was in middle school, all while managing performance anxiety. Students find her relaxation, mindfulness, and focus-building exercises to be extremely effective as they prepare for standardized tests and college admissions. As a master scheduler, Laura helps students develop organizational skills that they can implement throughout their lives.

Laura Yumi Snell holds a Master’s degree in Acting from Harvard University (with a research abroad certificate from the Moscow Art Theatre in Russia) and Bachelor’s degrees in Music and Dramatic Arts from UC Davis, where she was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, and Golden Key honor societies. Laura received a full scholarship thanks to her zest for learning that yielded high standardized test scores (perfect scores on SAT Math, SAT II Writing & Japanese), her passion for the arts and community engagement, and her hard-earned International Baccalaureate diploma. She also took coursework in pre-veterinary medicine and worked as a veterinary technician for two years.

When Laura isn’t teaching, she’s usually acting on screen/stage and producing theatre through SoHo Shakespeare Company. She also loves doting on her rescue dog Diamond, writing silly screenplays, and baking chewy snickerdoodles (which she usually shares with her students). An avid traveler, her dream is to visit all seven continents and to become a polyglot along the way.

Mary Shaw

April 5, 2021

At Binghamton University, Mary Shaw studied the development of formal education around the world. Still fascinated about how education is understood within a culture, she joined Teach for America in 1992 and began teaching Spanish, K-5 in rural North Carolina. After leaving North Carolina, she was motivated to learn more. At Bank Street College, Mary was introduced to progressive education, a way of seeing and teaching the whole child through hands-on interactive exploration and social learning. Throughout her years of teaching she discovered children learn best when immersed in meaningful activities and discussion.

In each setting, Mary Shaw developed classroom community through rich immersion in literacy. Reading and writing are necessary tools for life. A love for reading is a gift a child discovers and shares with everyone who will listen. For some children it is a challenge to make sense of words on a page. In 2012, she received her Master’s in Special Education at Hunter College to better understand the learning challenges that some children have in literacy and math learning. Mary strongly believes that her job is to stimulate children’s minds. She invites children to learn about the world around them through inquiry, research and problem solving by using their developing literacy and math skills.

As a general education and special education teacher for 13 years, Mary Shaw collaborated with co-teachers to develop accommodations for all students across the content areas. She developed teaching strategies for ENL (English as a New Language) students while immersing them in the larger curriculum. Mary taught phonics and reading programs such as Wilson Fundations, Words Their Way, and Teachers College Reading and Writing Workshop. She used a constructivist philosophy to build math programs. Mary invited children to learn about the world around them through inquiry, research and problem solving. They studied the life cycle of the plant and its importance in the world. The children investigated the question- what would happen if there were no plants? They then embarked on a yearlong study from farmers markets to cooking, seeds, bulbs, pollination and the life cycle of butterflies. As a pre-k teacher for three years, Mary supported hands-on, student-directed, experiential learning to encourage children to explore the world around them. She differentiated instruction to meet the needs of English language learners.

Mary Shaw also taught at the Northside Center for Child Development in Manhattan, where she implemented one-on-one, interactive reading instruction for first through fourth grade students with severe learning disabilities.

During the summers of 2000-2006 Mary was a graduate assistant at The Tiorati Environmental Workshop. She assisted the professor in teaching summer graduate courses in environmental studies (Bank Street College) and learned to apply inquiry-based learning to classroom settings.

In 2012, Mary was the recipient of the Merle E. Frampton Certificate for Excellence and Outstanding Performance in Special Education Teaching and Community Service from Hunter College.

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Susan Selvin

Charlotte Harary-Shechtman

Laura Yumi Snell

Mary Shaw

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