Founder of Shine In English KW, English teacher, wife, and mum of three.

I’ve been teaching English since 2023, but Shine didn’t start with a business plan.

It started when I helped my brother prepare for an English exam. I discovered how much I loved taking something that felt difficult and breaking it down until it finally made sense.

When I later began teaching children, I kept noticing the same problem.

Some children knew their letters and sounds. Some could read familiar books. Some had memorized hundreds of words.

But give them a word they had never seen before, and they didn’t know what to do.

They guessed. They looked at the picture. They waited for help.

That changed the way I thought about teaching reading.

I didn’t want children to simply look like readers. I wanted them to have the skills to work out unfamiliar words independently.

So instead of asking, “How can I give this child more practice?” I started asking:

“What skill is missing?”

That question is at the heart of everything I do at Shine In English.

I look closely at how a child reads, identify where the breakdown is happening, and teach those skills explicitly and systematically.

I don’t rush children forward because of their age or school year. I build from what they can actually do, strengthen the foundations, and move forward when they’re ready.

Because my goal isn’t to help a child memorize another book.

It’s to build a reader who can eventually say:

“I know what to do.”

I build readers, not memorizers.