Whooo's Reading exists to help cultivate a culture of engaged and thoughtful reading in schools, where students are inspired to love reading. Whooo's Reading is also committed to helping students develop Depth of Knowledge and writing skills through cutting-edge and research-backed technology.
Raphael Menko
Director of Product Management
- Favorite K-12 Teacher
- Mrs. Fingerhood
- Favorite Book, Then
- Treasure Island & Harry Potter
- Favorite Book, Now
- A Gentleman in Moscow
Gilles Ferone
Principal Software Developer
- Favorite K-12 Teacher
- Madame Guise
- Favorite Book, Then
- Le Petit Prince
- Favorite Book, Now
- Le comte de Monte Cristo
Claire Zaruba
Senior Customer Success Manager
- Favorite K-12 Teacher
- Mr. Snow
- Favorite Book, Then
- Matilda
- Favorite Book, Now
- The House in the Cerulean Sea
Kevin Schroeder
Senior Software Developer
- Favorite K-12 Teacher
- Mrs. O'Kelly
- Favorite Book, Then
- A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning
- Favorite Book, Now
- Blink
Lauryn Welch
Associate Customer Success Manager
- Favorite K-12 Teacher
- Mrs. Hancock
- Favorite Book, Then
- The Way Things Work
- Favorite Book, Now
- House of Leaves
Matt Schleifman
Senior Software Developer
- Favorite K-12 Teacher
- Mr. Lowry
- Favorite Book, Then
- Nate the Great
- Favorite Book, Now
- Desert Notebooks: A Road Map For The End Of Time
Geraldine Sy
Customer Support Specialist
- Favorite K-12 Teacher
- Mr. Nero
- Favorite Book, Then
- Harry Potter
- Favorite Book, Now
- The Bible
Morgan Anderson
Advising Scientist of Teaching and Learning
- Favorite K-12 Teacher
- Recess
- Favorite Book, Then
- Roald Dahl’s The BFG and Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli
- Favorite Book, Now
- Steven Strogatz’s Infinite Powers: How Calculus Brings to Life the Secrets of the Universe
Dan Farley
With an incredible amount of leadership experience at publishing houses including Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, Harcourt Trade Publishers, and Simon & Schuster, Dan helps us add the most value in the reading ecosystem.
Derrick Higgins
Derrick is a former Research Director at the Educational Testing Service. He brings a career's worth of expertise in machine learning and NLP (natural language processing) to his conversations with our data science team.
Whooo's Reading would not be what it is today without the brilliant ideas and guidance of our teacher advisory board. These awesome teachers gave their time to share their experiences with us, and they continue to give us feedback as Whooo's Reading continues to develop.
Lorie Barber
5th Grade Teacher
Schiesler Elementary School, Illinois
Influence: The first teacher to demo Whooo's Reading back in August 2014, Lorie has been advising us for a long time. Because of Lorie, students have the ability to write 'blogs,' which are essay-style assessments.
Traci Becker
8th Grade Teacher
Cumberland Middle School, Illinois
Influence: Traci's influence can be seen throughout Whooo's Reading. One key example is her guidance on how best to incorporate scaffolding into our formative assessments.
Hilary Cuevas-Balanon
Response to Reading Interventions
Poway School District, California
Influence: Hilary's breadth of experience working with struggling readers has helped us tremendously. One place you can see her influence is in the student newsfeed, which encourages collaborative learning.
Amanda Hallman
2nd Grade Teacher
Davidson Day School, North Carolina
Influence: Amanda pushed us to build activities that line up well with reading and writing lessons that take place in the classroom. She also encouraged us to focus on grammar in addition to comprehension, which is a component now included in our algorithmic autograder.
Janice Jones
Reading Specialist & former Assistant Principal
San Diego, California
Influence: With her depth of experience, Janice has given us valuable advice in many areas. She helped us understand the unique needs of Title 1 schools so we can better serve them, and she encouraged us to build a program with a tight feedback loop between students and teachers so that students' learning accelerates.
Leigh Madger
Teacher
B.F. Gibbs Elementary School, New Jersey
Influence: Leigh advised us to focus on giving students considerable practice writing and speaking in addition to reading. Whooo's Reading now allows students to respond to reading by recording themselves speaking and by typing a written response, instead of responding via multiple choice questions.
Kim Masiello
Literacy Coach
America's Finest Charter School, California
Influence: Kim has provided us with advice on scaffolding, especially for younger students. She has also encouraged us to include more images in our program to connect better to younger readers.
Shelly Palmer
English Teacher
Woodrow Wilson Middle School, Illinois
Influence: Shelly helped us develop an understanding of the need teachers have for formative assessments that get students to write. Thanks to her, students write a lot on Whooo's Reading.
Alysa Pepperman
3rd Grade Teacher
Perelman Jewish Day School, Pennsylvania
Influence: Alysa has been advising us since before Whooo's Reading was even created! Thanks to Alysa, Whooo's Reading provides considerable positive reinforcement to students. The kids must win is our unofficial company motto!
Mason Roulston
Teacher
River Valley Middle School, Ohio
Influence: Thanks to Mason, in our vocabulary activities, students need to demonstrate ownership over new words by using them in sentences, stories, etc.
Amy Talvac
3rd Grade Teacher
Carderock Springs Elementary School, Maryland
Influence: Amy has helped us with advice on integrating rubrics and creating formative assessments that focus on text-based evidence. She also represented Whooo's Reading at ISTE!
Natasha Von Klinger
Instructional Coach
Louisburg Elementary School, North Carolina
Influence: Natasha's advice guided us towards creating graphic organizers alongside our more traditional formative assessments.
