Scheduled to open in August 2026. The clinic will …

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We were featured in an article by national education journalist Holly Korbey. Read more about The Phonics Wars and the growing demand for Linguistic Phonics. 

Carolina Rivas has worked at Samuels Elementary School in Denver for the past 20 years. Born in El Salvador, she studied Education before beginning her career working with kindergarten students. Over time, she had the opportunity to become certified in several reading programs, including Estrellita, ILE (Intervención de Lectoescritura), Esperanza and Orton-Gillingham. These certifications led Carolina to work as an interventionist, supporting small groups of students from kindergarten through 5th grade in developing their reading and writing skills. 

Currently, Carolina works with a K/1 ELA-S class, where she supports early literacy development for young bilingual learners in both ELA and math. As a native Spanish speaker, Carolina is grateful to learn and implement this wonderful reading program — one she believes gives young Spanish-speaking readers the tools they need to become confident and fluent in both languages. Working in ELA-S, she often sees the challenges students face when decoding words in English, but it is incredibly rewarding to witness their excitement as they learn new sounds and begin to distinguish between sounds like "sh" and "ch." Seeing their progress and growing confidence as readers is one of the most meaningful parts of her work.

“I work mostly with Hispanic students. Kids who have never been in school. My hope is for my students to become literate, successful individuals who believe in their ability to accomplish anything they set their minds to.” -Carolina Rivas  

Juan Ortiz holds bachelor degrees in Spanish, English, and French as second languages, and a master's degree in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Education. He currently teaches 4th and 5th grade at Samuels Elementary School. Juan has two years of teaching experience in the U.S. and three years in Colombia. As a native Spanish speaker and a lifelong language enthusiast, Juan finds EBLI particularly exciting. Having learned English as a second language himself, he values that EBLI offers a fresh perspective on language learning and aligns with his fascination for linguistics. Juan loves that EBLI not only helps him support his students’ literacy development but also allows him to reflect on and improve his own language habits, making this training both professionally and personally meaningful.

“In the coming years, I hope these students will gain strong English skills that allow them to fully participate in their education, express their ideas, and pursue their goals with confidence. More importantly, I hope they develop a sense of belonging and pride in their bilingual and bicultural identities, becoming successful, empowered members of their new communities.” -Juan Camilo Ortiz Bernal

Students in grades 2-5 learning to read with individualized EBLI lessons.

After demonstrating vast improvements in their reading and writing skills, the first cohort of students graduated from our intervention program. Check out student data from the midyear benchmark below. 

Interested in observing EBLI in action? Schedule a visit to our pilot program.

ColoREADo’s community volunteers are hard at work supporting students across the school in basic skills. The data below shows improvements at the whole class level, as measured by how many correct letters students can write in one minute before and after support by our volunteers.

Volunteer of the month Nikki reads with a graduate of the intervention program.

Whether you’re a scholarship recipient, volunteer or parent of a child who has learned to read with EBLI, help us grow by sharing your ColoREADo experience in a Google review.

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Are you on Substack?

Stay up to date about the happenings at ColoREADo by subscribing to Tal’s Substack. As a Goyen Literacy Fellow, Tal regularly posts articles and videos to share teaching tips and updates on what is going on at the ColoREADo pilot. See a recent article and subscribe!

Make sure to subscribe to the Quarterly to stay up to date about the opening of the ColoREADo Clinic. We can't wait to share all of our upcoming developments with you!