Lori Sappington

Lori Sappington is an energetic former elementary and high school teacher who taught for over a decade in Baltimore, Maryland. She spent her first years teaching in high school, where she realized many students struggled to read and write well… which piqued her interest to learn more. She went on to teach ELA in primary and intermediate grades, all the while pursuing a Masters degree in reading. In addition to her role as classroom teacher, Lori supported teachers and leaders through coaching at the school and district levels. She has extensive experience developing and leading professional development about effective and equitable literacy instruction. When her district adopted a knowledge-building ELA curriculum, she wanted to learn more about research-based literacy instruction. This inspired her to create the popular podcast: Melissa & Lori Love Literacy, with her co-host Melissa Loftus. She feels deep gratitude to learn alongside 1 million listeners from experts and teachers about how to best teach reading and writing. The goal is to connect research to practice, strengthening teachers’ access and understanding to research and what it looks like in instruction. She is co-author of the new book, The Literacy 50--A Q&A Handbook for Teachers: Real-World Answers to Questions About Reading That Keep You Up at Night. Lori holds a BA in Elementary Education and English, an MS.Ed as a Reading Specialist, and an Advanced Leadership Certificate from Towson University. She currently executes the vision and alignment of multimedia content with Great Minds and lives in Maryland with her daughter, Presley, and husband, Michael, where they spend their free time playing sports of all kinds.