“Helping students changed my teaching” Michelle Qazi’s passion for ensuring every student has the support they need to learn how to read and write started with one dyslexic child

Reading came easily to BVSD’s Director of Literacy.

“Big shocker. I love to read,” Michelle Qazi said with a laugh. 

“I come from a family of readers,” she added. “One of my memories as a child was sitting on a big, huge chair, curled up with a book.”

It is a passion that she’s always wanted to share with others, so it is good that she also was a natural at teaching. Growing up in Arizona, the youngest of nine kids, she had a lot of opportunities to care and support kids.

“I was the babysitter for all my nieces and nephews. I was always around kids and I just loved it,” Qazi said. “By the time I was 14 years old, I was taking care of my oldest sister's kids all summer long and people in the neighborhood started asking, ‘can you watch my kids?’ So I set up a ‘preschool’ at the age of 14 to just pull in these different kids and just do different activities with them.”

Later, in college, after a short stint studying computer science, she eventually became an education major and landed her first “real” teaching job at a school outside of Phoenix, close to Maricopa, Arizona. 

“I started my teaching career in 6th grade and I taught language arts and science. It was a unique school because it was in a really small town and served three Native American reservations,” Qazi remembered. “It really taught me that you have to think about the students and how their home situation impacts school. For example, we had a number of kids who didn't have electricity or running water. I could only assign homework that could be done before the sun went down.”

The turning point in her career
She eventually stepped away from the classroom for a while to raise her kids and that is when she and her family moved to Colorado. She got a job in the Academy 20 School District in Colorado Springs and was surprised by what she found. Despite being an affluent community, similar in many ways to BVSD, students were struggling.

“I taught third grade and  had a number of students who came through my classroom doors who didn't know how to read,” Qazi said. 

Remembering back, one specific student stands out.

“When I did all of the assessments at the beginning of the year, including a writing sample, he just had strings of consonants put together. That was it. There were no gaps between any of those constants,” Qazi recalled. “I could kind of tell what his ideas were. I could fill in the vowels, but I was totally at a loss for how to help him.”

Nothing she tried worked, so she began researching on the Internet and asked for help from other educators. Eventually, that led her to a nationally recognized expert in dyslexia and related learning disabilities, who serendipitously teaches at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. 

“Dr. Lynne Fitzhugh taught me everything I know about how the brain learns to read and dyslexia,” Qazi said. “I started studying under her and realized that was the missing link. This student probably has dyslexic. All of those other kids who kept on walking into my doors probably had dyslexia.”

Using what she had learned, she began tutoring the student after school and the results were immediate. 

“He began making significant gains,” Qazi said. 

As a book lover, she, like many other teachers, had subscribed to a way of teaching where students were to learn how to read by being exposed to text. Confronted with an evidence-based alternative that actually worked – she chose to embrace it.

“Helping these students changed my teaching,” Qazi said. “As Superintendent Anderson says, ‘When you know better, do better.’”

She says learning how brains learn to read changed her entire philosophy on teaching kids to read.

“If you're not teaching students to read, it will be hard for them to actually love reading. If it is frustrating, they’re not going to love it,” Qazi said. “It is amazing to think that I had a bachelor's degree in elementary education with an emphasis in language arts, and then I had a master's in curriculum and instruction with an emphasis in literacy. Nowhere in any of those programs did I ever hear about dyslexia or how children learn to read.”

That’s why Qazi, in her current role, is focused on sharing what some call the “science of reading” with BVSD teachers through professional development and direct support, as well as implementing a new curriculum that ensures that every reader is taught the foundational skills of reading, including phonics. 

“It was essential for students that I knew with dyslexia or anyone with dyslexic characteristics, but really it is good teaching for every student,” Qazi added. “When they see that it's working, they're like, that’s great.”

She also has embraced the concerns of parents of students within the district who had been struggling to read. Members of BVKID, who long came to Board of Education meetings to ring the alarm, found a partner in Qazi.

“They just want their kids to learn to read and they see the frustration at home. They see the struggle,” Qazi acknowledged. “We don't always see that in school, because kids are on their best behavior and just really persevering through and trying to do their best. Parents, however, see the struggle. The parents see the emotion and the frustration. As a parent myself, if I was to see my kids struggling like that, yeah, you bet I would come in and advocate. I would advocate hard. And so just coming at it from that perspective of parents aren't trying to make noise or anything like that. They're literally just trying to help their kids.”

Following their suggestions, BVSD implemented a dyslexia screener in kindergarten, with the goal of identifying and supporting students earlier.  Before, parents were on their own, needing to seek a diagnosis for dyslexia from their medical provider.

“I think that we're at a point now where it's a partnership. They are letting us know what they're seeing with their kids and what they think their kids might need and really engaging in that conversation with us,” Qazi said. “They're continuing to advocate for their kids and I welcome that.”

Beyond Boulder Valley
Beyond her efforts in BVSD, Qazi is also working to bring the message to the national level. She is currently serving as the president of the Academic Language Therapy Association (ALTA), a national 501(c)6 non profit that sets the standard for effective, evidence-based reading and writing instruction for individuals with dyslexia and related learning disabilities. The organization, which has more than 6,000 members in the United States, works to credential educators who have gone through rigorous training.

“[The certification says] this person has gone through rigorous training and you can feel good about putting them in front of your students,” Qazi said.

“You can imagine the impact that you can have from being part of that large, national organization. We're not as large as others yet, but it's just amazing to give teachers that knowledge and to help them through it,” Qazi added. “ALTA started in Texas in 1986 and now there are ALTA members across the country who have really spearheaded legislation and really made an impact.”

More than just reading
While a lot of important work is being done in reading, it is important to note that it is only a part of the work that Qazi and her team are focused on in the Literacy department.

“I'm not the director of foundational reading skills,” Qazi said. “As the Director of Literacy, I oversee reading, writing, spelling, speaking and listening, pre-kindergarten through 12th grade.”

She has been working to access the district in all of these areas, in order to build a roadmap for the work. 

“We know the destination that we're trying to get to. We are identifying the holes that are preventing us from getting there,” Qazi said. 

Getting to Know Michelle

Here are a few more details, so you can get to know our Director of Literacy.

A family of bookworms
Michelle and her siblings remain avid readers. In fact, from time to time they all will choose to read the same book at the same time. 

Looking for a recommendation? One of Michelle’s favorite books is Prodigal Summer by one of her favorite authors Barbara Kingsolver.

Baseball fanatic
Growing up, Michelle’s family didn’t have a television, so when they weren’t reading, the family would often listen to baseball on the radio.

“I remember listening to Red Sox games with my mom and grandpa,” Michelle reminisced.

“My mom is a huge fan and she just gave us the love of baseball,” she added. “She used to read the sports page to us at breakfast every morning – all the highlights and stats and everything.” 

Over the past several years, Michelle has embarked on a baseball pilgrimage, hoping to visit each and every ballpark.

“Every ballpark is different. Everybody cuts the grass differently,” Michelle said. 

She also loves sitting in different places at each field, because of the way that different seats can completely change the entire experience.

And then there is the history. She went to Fenway last year and learned that the shape of the historic stadium was dictated by the lot that the team could buy.

“It is right in downtown Boston, so there wasn't enough space. That’s why Fenway is actually really long and skinny,” Qazi said. “It's just fascinating.”

Bon Appétit
Michelle says that her favorite stress reliever is baking. 

“My team will tell you that I bake for them a bit.” Michelle said.

Her favorite? Macarons. She learned how to make them from her daughter, who warned her before she started the addictive hobby.

“My oldest daughter is an incredible baker,” Michelle said. “I asked her one day to teach me how to make them. She was like, ‘Oh, mama. Think long and hard before you want to get into this, because it will take over your life.”

It has done just that. After a good number of batches being thrown out, Michelle has conquered the macaron.

“I have cracked the code. I can do them gluten and dairy free. Different colors,” Michelle said. “For the holidays, I gave a whole bunch of people gingerbread ones and then also hot chocolate with little mini marshmallows on top.”

“They're super fun. So that's my creative side,” she added.