About me and how BLAST began ...

This is me!

Personally:

Married for 25+ years

Mother to 2 beautiful young women

Mother-in-law to a great young man

Grew up in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia

Now living in Edmonton, Alberta

Traveling every chance I get!

Professionally:

Graduate of Nova Scotia Teachers' College
Graduate of Mount St Vincent University

Teacher for 30+ years

Teaching experience in NS, Nunavut, and AB

Teaching experience includes:

Classroom teacher
Inclusive Education Facilitator
Special Education Programming
Literacy Support
Speech and Language Support
Intervention Support

How BLAST began ...

BLAST has been a labour of love for me since the planning began in 2017.

While I was the Literacy Support Teacher at a K-3 school, we were becoming increasingly concerned with the lack of oral language skills we were seeing in our Kindergarten students entering school.

In 2017, my school principal, Sherry Howey, and I had a Collaborative Response meeting with Kurtis Hewson from Jigsaw Learning. He told us about an intervention he started with his staff when he was a principal in Claresholm. With an embedded intervention block for all classes, he and his staff gathered teaching resources and created lesson plans to teach students specific reading skills. His ideas for a school-wide intervention seemed like a perfect fit for our school. Sherry and I decided that in my role as literacy support, I would find or create the materials needed to start the BLAST intervention at our school.

We began BLAST in the fall of 2018 and saw great growth in student learning. Over the next few years, I recreated all of the materials with my own original designs. After retiring in June 2022 I created Nancy Mac Consulting and began working as an educational consultant, spreading the word about BLAST.

Thank you ...

Creating BLAST over the past several years has consumed my days and nights and wouldn't have been possible without the support of some amazing people ...

thanks to Kurtis and Lorna Hewson. along with their teachers, who created the first BLAST
to Sherry Howey, my school principal, and friend, for your faith, encouragement, and support in the creation of the first BLAST intervention
the teachers and support staff at my school, for jumping into the BLAST intervention and working through the wrinkles of this new idea. Their positive attitudes and thoughtful feedback helped make the new BLAST materials even better!
my friend, Katrin Sannig, SLP extraordinaire, who answered all of my speech-related questions and engaged in many lengthy discussions about speech and language development
to my family, Chris, Sarah, Emily and Bailey, who must be tired of looking at clip art, sorting manipulatives and cutting laminating. I love you all!