Authors
Stephanie Harvey has spent her career teaching and learning about reading and writing. An elementary and special ed teacher for fifteen years, she now works as a staff developer and educational consultant. Insatiably curious about student thinking, she is a teacher first and foremost and continues to work in schools on a regular basis savoring any time spent with kids. The coauthor of the Heinemann titles Comprehension Going Forward and Comprehension & Collaboration as well as the author of Nonfiction Matters and Strategies That Work, the latter coauthored by Anne Goudvis, Stephanie works with educators, schools and districts to implement progressive literacy practices. She has created a number of video series that showcase thoughtful literacy practice. Her most classroom materials with firstHand include The Comprehension Toolkit, the Primary Comprehension Toolkit, and Comprehension Interventions. Created along with Anne Goudvis, they form an intensive resource for comprehension instruction and active literacy across the day and throughout the year.
Anne Goudvis is the coauthor the Heinemann title Comprehension Going Forward and of Strategies that Work (with Stephanie Harvey). She and Steph also created best-selling classroom materials through firstHand: The Comprehension Toolkit; The Primary Comprehension Toolkit; and Comprehension Interventions.
Anne has been a classroom teacher, staff developer, and university instructor. For the past fifteen years she has worked as a staff developer with the Denver-based Public Education and Business Coalition and currently does staff development in schools around the country. Recent interests include working in schools with culturally and linguistically diverse students and integrating reading comprehension instruction with content area topics in social studies and science.
Katie Muhtaris has enjoyed teaching and learning with her students in the Chicago Public School system for the last eight years. She is Nationally Board Certified as a Middle Childhood Generalist and holds a Master’s Degree in Teacher Leadership. In addition to her devotion to her students, Katie also leads staff development in person around the country and digitally around the globe on Inquiry-based learning, technology integration, and reading comprehension strategies. Katie is the author of the blog Inquiry Live in the Classroom where she writes about her day-to-day teaching practices and seeks to connect with educators around the world.
Kristin Ziemke has been teaching and learning from children in both urban and suburban schools for the past 13 years. She engages her first grade students in authentic learning experiences where reading, thinking, collaboration, and inquiry are at the heart of the curriculum. An Apple Distinguished Educator, National Board Certified Teacher, and Chicago’s Tech Innovator of the Year, Kristin holds a Master’s Degree in Instructional Leadership. She constantly seeks opportunities to transform education through technology innovation, pairing best practice instruction with digital tools to capture thinking, foster creativity, differentiate instruction, and increase collaboration in the classroom and beyond.