We’re hiring!

1:1 Literacy Instructor

Part-time | In-person | Central Vermont

Literacy Instructors at the Literacy Spark are imperative to the success of our mission. The literacy instructor will regularly provide 1:1 literacy instruction to Literacy Spark students. This includes developing relationships with both the student and their caregivers, preparing lessons and materials for 1:1 instruction and ensuring students achieve exceptional results. Milestones, goals, and data will be created and tracked for each student and shared via progress monitoring reports with the students and their caregivers.

As a literacy instructor at the Literacy Spark, you will be reporting to the founder and CEO, Emily Carley, as well as communicating regularly with the Operations Director. You will consistently work with students and their caregivers directly while engaging in regular communication and check-ins with the founder and fellow Literacy Spark instructors.

The Literacy Spark is a growing organization and you will absolutely have the opportunity to grow with it. In addition to providing an annual continuing education stipend to instructors, we emphasize promoting from within. Our mission is clear, our potential limitless and our opportunities plenty.

In the Literacy Instructor role, you will have a direct impact on the Literacy Spark’s success in making high quality, equitable education available to as many students as possible.

Requirements:

• Have a four year higher education degree program in education

• Master’s of education degree preferred

• 3+ years classroom or 1:1 teaching experience K-12

• Consistently provide specialized, evidence-based structured literacy instruction and adapt to meet student learning needs.

• Have a current teaching license and up-to-date official background check.

• Adept at reading, comprehending and translating evaluative data as well as IEPs (individual education plan) into instructional moves for personalized, targeted lessons.

• Interest in providing high quality instruction to students of a wide age / grade range.

• Experience working with students in groups and 1:1 settings.

• SLL and/or Orton-Gillingham training through the associate level preferred

Responsibilities:

• Dedicated time and effort creating personalized lessons informed by evaluative and diagnostic data, IEP goals and outcomes, your professional training and experience and any knowledge of the child shared by their caregiver(s).

• Administration of diagnostic assessments in phonemic awareness skills, handwriting, real / pseudoword reading, spelling and sentence dictation as well as text reading (fluency, accuracy and comprehension).

• Create sequentially paced lesson plans based on the needs of each student with components consistently inclusive of: alphabetic principle, handwriting, phonemic awareness, phonogram word level / phrase level drills for reading and auditory word level and phrase or sentence diction level for spelling, text reading, review and new instruction of phonetically irregular words.

• Data collection during every lesson to continuously track student learning levels in pursuit of mastery of a skillset and development of the next lesson in the sequence. 

• High quality text selection with engaging introductions for each new text to be read, and use of texts familiar to the student for the purpose of developing fluency skills.

Results:

• The Literacy Spark has a high regard for each student and their caregiver(s).

• We ensure every student feels seen, heard, understood and is treated with dignity through personalized, joyful and well targeted literacy lessons.

• Work is consistently monitored to ensure every lesson is planned thoroughly following an evidence-based sequence of instruction applying SLL and OG instructional techniques for handwriting, alphabetic principle, phonemic awareness, phonograms for encoding and decoding, text reading (accuracy, fluency and comprehension), sentence dictation and phonetically irregular words.

• Caregivers of Literacy Spark students receive routine communication through warm, thoughtful connections at lesson conclusions and via quarterly progress monitoring reports specific to their child’s instruction.

• We assure each child’s educational team they will make accelerated progress toward literacy achievement under our tutelage and care.

Compensation:

• $55/hour

• Sessions are defined as a 60 minute instructional session with the student and a 30 minute block following the session for note taking, review and preparation for the next lesson.

Benefits:

• A flexible work schedule

• Up to $500 continuing education stipend per year

• Free professional coaching from Emily Carley

• Literacy Spark swag

Location and Hours:

• All sessions will be in-person and local to Montpelier, Vermont to start

• LS will offer virtual 1:1 instruction in the near future

• Minimum of 5 students per week to start

• M-F sessions can be scheduled anytime between 7:30 am - 7:30 pm, and often Saturday mornings.

• Session frequency and timing will be determined by the student and LS instructor availability.

• Instructor will handle session scheduling directly with students’ caregiver(s) with oversight from Emily Carley.

Communication Expectations:

• Communication can take many forms, including in-person, telephone, virtual meetings and email.

• Weekly or bi-weekly meeting with Literacy Spark founder.

• Communication of challenges, any client-facing problems, management of client expectations and your needs.

Opportunities for growth:

• Opportunity to go full-time in the near future

How to apply:

Please reach out via email with the following:

• Cover letter

• Two letters of recommendation

• At least one must be from a mentor in the education field and/or a previous employer in the education field

• Professional resume

• Two examples of instructional materials created by you in the last six months

The application process:

• Submission of all application materials

• 15 min screening call with operations director

• After screening call, operations director will follow up to let you know if offered a 30 min interview with founder

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, pregnancy, disability, age, veteran status, or other characteristics.