About

Hi there, I’m Ellie.  Thanks for visiting my blog!  You’ve got questions?  I’ve got answers.

Who is Ellie?

That’s me.  I’m an educator, avid reader, and a Mom who is raising her reader in beautiful Portland, Oregon.  It’s always a little weird to write this bio stuff – I feel like I’m a contestant on Wheel of Fortune and Pat Sajak has just asked me to describe myself.  But I digress, now on to the fancy stuff: I taught high school language arts and social studies for years, and now I’m teaching teachers in the reading endorsement program at the Lewis & Clark College Graduate School of Education. I write about my research and my experiences for the professional online journal Choice Literacy.  My passion is exploring how we think about and teach reading in our culture.  I geek out on research in the fields of language acquisition, classroom learning, and reading and writing instruction.  I also love science, which requires its own kind of literacy. 

Why are you writing this blog?

My love for all things reading infuses all parts of my life; as a result I have been boring my friends and relatives at dinner parties for years with stories about my research.  I started this blog to as a way to talk about my passion, but that’s not all.  Parents want to know what the secret is for raising a reader.  The truth is, it isn’t any one thing.  There’s no boxed set of “I-Can-Read” books out there that will do the trick.  There’s nothing you can buy from Costco or the Learning Palace that will make your kid a reader- trust me, I've tried. 

The secret to raising a reader isn’t able to be described in one sitting; it requires an ongoing conversation. The blog provides a forum for that conversation to take place.  I created ellieraisesareader as an invitation to you to step into the literacy world we’ve created in our home: one that nurtures our Kiddo’s love for stories, words, and oral communication.  It’s a world where reading is as much a part of her life as, say, eating.   I hope you'll find what you read useful. 

Happy Reading!