Elizabeth Cook

When I first completed my B.Sc. in Biology and later my B.Ed (secondary) at Memorial University, I was going to be a biology teacher for the rest of my life. Well, things quickly changed and life took me in a new direction. After a few different careers in a few different provinces my husband and I settled in Nova Scotia and started our family. I was fortunate enough to spend the following years raising my three wonderful children. I was able to volunteer at their schools, act as chaperone on field trips, be involved in the school PTO, hot lunch program, etc etc. all things that fed my desire to be back in the classroom but with a slight change. I wanted to be a part of the lives of these young learners.

Diving head first into the middle of a pandemic with covid restrictions and protocols, I have spent the last few years in back to back term sub positions and most recently a contract term position all in the P-3 grades. It was a shock to learn the statistics concerning today's low literacy rates in elementary schools. Not to mention the additional hurdles posed by the COVID-19 pandemic that have only intensified the urgency of addressing these issues. Math was always a strength of mine. It was structured, hands on, and engaging, but how would I best support these struggling readers? I worked closely with literacy coaches and literacy support specialists to build a foundation for those students who were being left behind by the current curriculum. The more I searched for material, the more I learned, and the more I saw the cracks that many of these early readers were falling through. I knew I needed to be better equipped if I was going to take on this challenge and make it a focus of where I wanted to be as a literacy supporter and educator in the future.

When I first found your Masters of Education, Reading Development and Instruction program I knew it was my answer. It spoke to my background in science and my desire to find a more structured, researched based approach to early literacy instruction. I see the change that is coming in our current literacy approach and am excited to be a part of it. I am delighted to “come home to Memorial”, although online, to build on the knowledge and education I started there so many years ago.