Karen Beeman, M.Ed. – teachingforbiliteracyKB@gmail.com

Co Founder Karen is an education consultant whose specialty is biliteracy and bilingual education.  Karen’s professional experience includes working as bilingual teacher, principal of a dual language school in the city of Chicago, and as a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and at National Louis University.   The area that has most captured Karen’s passion and work is biliteracy, how to teach children how to read and write in two languages at the same time.   Karen works at the national level providing professional development for diverse stakeholders on Spanish literacy instruction, English literacy instruction, language scaffolding, biliteracy, the Bridge, advocacy and program development.  A simultaneous bilingual born and raised in Mexico City, Karen is co-author, along with Cheryl Urow, of the book Teaching for Biliteracy: Strengthening Bridges between Languages (Caslon Publishing, 2013) and is co-founder of the Center for Teaching for Biliteracy.

Como una bilingüe simultánea, nacida y criada en México, que aprendió a leer y a escribir en español y en inglés desde la primaria hasta la preparatoria, Karen se identifica con muchos de los estudiantes bilingües en los EE.UU., y busca apoyar a los educadores a que desarrollen el potencial de todos sus estudiantes para que sobresalgan académicamente. Su pasión hacia la lectoescritura bilingüe ha nacido de sus experiencias personales y profesionales en donde su biculturalismo y su bilingüismo siempre han sido enriquecidos.