Dr. Thompson

I am thankful to have been a teacher in SC for 27 years. I’ve been serving as a Reading Coach and Response to Intervention Specialist at Chapin Elementary School for ten years. Previous to my current role, I served students in kindergarten through fifth grade as a reading interventionist for eight years. Prior to that, I taught preschool, kindergarten, first, and second grades as a classroom teacher. In 2018, I earned my doctorate from the University of South Carolina. In the summertime, I serve as an adjunct professor for USC and Canisius University. I have a passion for teaching and learning with and for teachers and students!

It is my privilege and goal to support teachers in accelerating ALL students' reading progress by providing a fun, challenging, positive, and enriched learning environment that enables each student to reach their academic potential. Together, the teachers and I will create classroom communities where everyone (teachers, kids, and myself) act as learners as we read and write throughout each day. When we all interact with texts and one another in social and thoughtful ways, it helps us name what we know, how we know it, and honors individual interpretations.  In this way, we become readers and writers who:

• understand that reading is a meaning-making process
• believe in their ability to make sense of text
• choose to engage in reading for a variety of purposes (such as fun & entertainment, to do work, to learn...) and experience pleasure doing so.

I believe that when parents, teachers, and kids work together we are stronger together and maximize opportunities to help kids accelerate their learning. This year will be packed with joyful and rigorous learning! The following quote illustrates my beliefs about growing readers and writers.  

Choose to have fun. Fun creates enjoyment. Enjoyment invites participation. Participation focuses attention. Attention expands awareness. Awareness promotes insight. Insight generates knowledge. Knowledge facilitates action. Action yields results.

   -Oswald B. Shallow