Profile

Tonya Ward Singer is a language development and literacy expert with a deep commitment to ensuring all students access high-quality education.  She consults nationally, providing customized trainings, coaching, and technical support to accelerate student achievement in linguistically diverse districts and schools.

Tonya has taught at multiple levels in the K-12 span as a classroom teacher, reading specialist, and bilingual resource teacher. She draws on her extensive instructional experience and solid foundation in current research to help educators enhance instruction in academic language, reading and writing.

A captivating speaker, Tonya specializes in providing interactive trainings that synthesize research into ready-to-use instructional tools. She tailors the content and focus of each training specifically to meet the needs of each client ensuring that her work builds on district strengths while targeting precise needs.

With her strong pedagogy, organizational acumen and facilitation skills, Tonya is an asset for any district navigating the challenges of implementing system-wide change. As she focuses on the micro level to equip teachers with specific instructional strategies, she also empowers districts at the macro level by building in-house systems to support effective long-term implementation.

Together with Kate Kinsella, Ed.D, Tonya Ward Singer co-authored the LBook, an interactive academic language and literacy development curriculum for Scholastic's Read180 intervention program. She also co-developed pedagogical guides for Longman and Oxford University Press.

Tonya received her B.A. in Sociology from Wesleyan University with Phi Beta Kappa honors and M.F.A. in writing from Goddard College in Vermont. She holds multiple-subject teaching credentials and is an active member of the California Association of Bilingual Education, National Council of Teachers of English, and Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. She is fluent in Spanish and has beginning level proficiency in Mandarin Chinese.

Publications:

Education
Oxford Picture Dictionary for the Content Areas Teacher's Edition , Oxford University Press, 2010.

Pedagogical Teacher's Guide, Longman Elementary Dictionary and Thesaurus , Pearson Longman, 2010.

The LBook for Scholastic's Read180 Program, Scholastic Education, 2009.

A Literature Circle's Guide for Holes by Louis Sachar, Scholastic Professional Books, 2003.

The Scholastic Teacher Plan Book, Scholastic Professional Books, 2001.

Fiction, Memoir and Poetry

"Rooting" and "First Trimester" at Mamazine.com, 2009.

"Dirt", In the Mist, 2009.

“Passage/Pasaje” a merit-award winning poem published on Sonoma County buses in 2005/2006.

"A Taste of Home" in Expat: Women's True Stories from Life Abroad, Seal Press, 2002.

"By the Book" published in the San Francisco Chronicle. Sunday, January 14th, 2001.