Stephenie Blakley

Hi, everyone!  I am Stephenie Blakley.  I currently teach special education (LD, MMD, and EBD) at Roby Elementary in Shepherdsville, Kentucky.  I am so excited to be participating in KRP this summer, along with two colleagues from my school, April Atherton and MaryBeth McCubbins.

I am currently working on my dissertation to complete my EdD in Leadership Education.  I am also the mother of a very busy 6 year old and the wife of a LMPD bike officer in downtown Louisville.  Along with our yorkie, JonJon, my husband, Trever, my son, Will, and I live in Mount Washington. 

As you can imagine, with teaching, school, and running around with a 6 year old, I have very little freetime.  When I do have time for leisure activities, I enjoy working out (I have recently taken up hot yoga), reading, and boating.

I love to read, but right now, I mostly read research and professional books.  When I do get free time, to leisure read, I LOVE fiction by Mary Higgins Clark and Jodi Picoult.  I also enjoy reading ethnographies by Alexandra Robbins (Pledged, The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth) and any autobiographies or biographies focused on the Kennedy family (my favorite is True Compass by Ted Kennedy).  I will be traveling to Mexico with my family in a few weeks, and I hope to spend plenty of time on the beach reading. 

As a special education teacher, literacy has always been a major focal point in my classroom.  I love reading with my students and helping them unlock the magic of a good book.  For the past two years, I have worked with 4th and 5th graders, and my reading lessons have been focused mainly on comprehension skills.  I am excited to further hone my teaching of comprehension skills through KRP.  I am also excited to gain new insight into teaching fluency, decoding, and phonics.  I also plan to spend a large amount of class time working on vocabulary, in the upcoming school year.  So, I am excited to learn new strategies for teaching vocabulary. 

I look forward to meeting with all of you soon!!