Karen has over twenty-five years of educational experience as a teacher, school administrator, and language arts consultant. She enjoys sharing her passion for literacy with teachers, students, and parents!
In 2007, she completed her Master of Education degree at the University of Alberta with a focus in literacy. During the last few years, her passions for teaching and writing have collided. She has four books published with Pembroke Publishers, How Do I Get Them to Write? (2017), Freewriting with Purpose (2019), Literacy Leadership Matters (2023), and Literacy Instruction Matters (2025). Karen is also the author of seven Bug Club Phonics decodable readers and the senior author of Bug Club Morphology published by Pearson. She continues to work with Pearson and is now creating a resource entitled Literacy Success Foundations to support struggling readers in grades four and up.
Karen regularly provides professional development sessions to educators. Most recently she presented to early childhood teachers at ECEC 2025. She has presented to administrators at ELAC 2024 in Banff, Alberta, through ASCD in Winnipeg, Manitoba, CAP2023 in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, and uLead2023 in Banff, Alberta. Karen has presented at the Greater Edmonton Teachers’ Convention, the Calgary City Teachers’ Convention, the Central Alberta Teachers’ Convention, Mighty Peace Teachers’ Convention, the English as a Second Language Conference, the English Language Arts Council Conference, the North Central Teachers’ Convention, the Palliser District Teachers’ Convention, the Central East Alberta Teachers’ Convention, the South Eastern Alberta Teachers’ Convention, and with the Edmonton Regional Learning Consortium. In February 2020, Karen presented in Toronto at the Reading For the Love of It conference. In 2021, she presented a full day session as part of the Manitoba Teachers’ Society PD Day.
Karen is now booking professional development sessions for teachers as well as parent literacy evenings. The 2025-2026 school year is filling up quickly!
She continues to write and has many projects on the go! Subscribe to her blog for a weekly reflection for educators.