About Me
Hi, my name is Kassi.
I graduated from my university with a teaching degree in 2002, with a huge belly, as my second child was due. I started teaching in 2003 and continued for 2 and a half years until my 3rd child was born. With 3 young children, and my eldest child freshly diagnosed with Autism, I had my hands full! Then, surprise!!! I found out I was pregnant again, and my second child was also diagnosed with Autism. I decided to put my career on hold. During this time, I was plunged into the world of raising children with additional needs and attended many appointments: speech therapy, occupational therapy, psychology, psychiatry and paediatric appointments. I researched how best to teach and support my children. I booked myself into seminars like Tony Attwood and Sue Larky workshops. It was then that I realised I had been taught the wrong way to teach children with additional needs. The whole language approach was not going to help my children learn. I drastically altered the way I parented, and found myself trying to educate my children's teachers on how best to support my children.
In 2011, I decided to return to teaching, but this time everything was different. I ended up being the preferred teacher for classes with high levels of need, and I also started to teach in an Autism specific school. I learned the importance of repeated explicit instruction, and that many children do not instinctively absorb the lessons from their surroundings. I used visuals and predictable timetables to create safe working environments.
In 2015, I began teaching Stage 1 and remained there until December 2021. With good classroom management and effective strategies in place to support children with additional needs, I was able to focus on teaching children to thrive in reading. I have continued teaching Year 1 and Year 2 students since 2024, alongside developing my own independent English homeschool resources.
Over the past 12 years, I have undertaken professional training in various systematic synthetic phonics programs and trialled different approaches in the classroom. The results were remarkable! The majority of my students finished the year well above expected stage outcomes, while students with specific learning disabilities continued to make significant progress, achieving approximately 12 months of learning growth in a single year.
These experiences strengthened my passion for helping every child become a confident reader and writer. They also shaped my commitment to structured, evidence-informed teaching and ultimately inspired me to develop Aussie Readers.
