Literacy



Work Experience

Technical coordinator and English lead for HQ on QITABI 2, a USAID early grade reading, math, and social and emotional learning program for public schools in Lebanon, grades 1-6 (2019 to now)

  • Mapped national textbooks and curriculum and identified gaps

  • Worked with Ministry of Education to reduce curriculum to a shortened core for reduced instructional time during political upheaval and Covid lockdowns

  • Led the restructuring of remaining curriculum to be developmentally appropriate and align with science of reading and integrate social and emotional learning (SEL) scope and sequence

  • Oversee production of teaching and learning materials for every lesson, grades 1-6, English


Technical lead for World Learning's support of National Program for Reading (NPR), a USAID early grade reading program in Morocco (led by Creative Associates) (2020-2021)

  • Led training sessions for program personnel and Ministry of Education personnel on

    • Readability

    • Interactive task design

    • Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

  • Advised various members of the team on planning and creating classroom videos, and all aspects of course design and navigation


Design lead for the massive open online course (MOOC) Teaching Struggling Readers Around the World, co-created between World Learning and The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) (2018)

  • Worked with literacy experts at CUHK to create scope and sequence of the MOOC

  • Worked with writers to create materials appropriate for non-native English speaking participants

  • Led on course design and upload

  • Created digital badging and certificates


Created English curriculum for Syrian Refugee Kids Can Code (2018)

  • This afterschool program for 11-14 year olds taught coding skills on Kano computers, which have an English interface

  • Many of the students had to first learn the alphabet of English

  • Also integrated in a psychosocial support curriculum


Advisor for the development of an English reading program for sixth graders in Gaza (2017)


Created new placement exam for Literacy Volunteers in Tucson (2006)

Related Publications

English reading in primary school students in Lebanon (under review).


McBride, K. (2008). English web page use in an EFL setting: A contrastive rhetoric view of the development of information literacy. In U. Connor, E. Nagelhout & W. Rozycki (Eds.), Contrastive rhetoric (pp. 219–240). Philadelphia: Benjamins.