Inspiring Achievements

Celebrating Educators
Debra C. Kwiatek, ELA Instructional Specialist
Reading Public Schools—Reading, MA

In high school, Debra Kwiatek spent summers working in the Head Start program. During this time she had the opportunity to work with talented teachers who inspired and encouraged her to pursue teaching as a career.

After spending time teaching Special Education, Kwiatek moved to elementary grades (one, four, and five), and from there, to her current role as an ELA Instructional Specialist for grades K–6.

The most memorable time in her profession came while teaching fourth grade. “I remember well a student who was struggling with inferencing skills. She said she could not ‘find the answer’ in the book.

“While working with young children, I had the
opportunity to learn from talented teachers who
inspired and encouraged me to pursue teaching as a career.”

I supported her by applying questioning strategies - explaining that it is like peeling the layers of an onion. With support and encouragement, she successfully arrived at a thoughtful, articulate response and was so proud. She at that moment came to the realization that not everything is directly stated but rather inferred.”

Over 22 years, Ms. Kwiatek developed a strong belief that research-based strategies such as multisensory teaching techniques for phonemic awareness, phonics, and spelling skills have proven successful for helping struggling readers. She’s also found that struggling readers benefit from specific comprehension and vocabulary strategies.

Her advice to new teachers? “Classroom teachers need to be reading teachers as well. Training in specific strategies such as the Orton-Gillingham approach and comprehension strategies is essential. Teachers need to teach the ‘how to’ of reading.” These beliefs play out well in an area where she finds new joy: teaching reading strategies to other teachers.“ The better trained a teacher is, the better he/she is able to service students."

	EPS began as the leading publisher of materials for students with dyslexia. Over the past 50 years, we’ve developed programs that support students with a wide variety of learning disabilities. Choose a subject from the left to learn more about these resources.