Division of Early Literacy Spotlight: Whitney Hamilton
From 2017 to 2023, Whitney Hamilton led the elementary reading and writing standards work for the Office of Teaching and Learning in the Division of Program Standards (DPS). Hamilton joined the Division of Early Literacy last summer as one of five State Regional Literacy Directors charged with leading Kentucky in transformational literacy change for students in grades K-3 and beyond.
“Kentucky has incredible teachers who work hard for their students and communities every day. I am thrilled to be a part of an initiative that will help all of us maximize our efforts for students to learn exactly what they need to be skilled readers and writers. The increased knowledge and resources for Kentucky’s literacy teachers will have monumentally positive impacts on our students and their futures,” Hamilton said.
Prior to coming to the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE), Hamilton taught third grade for 15 years. She worked as both a self-contained classroom teacher and a reading teacher, a subject that emerged as her passion. Teaching students with varied abilities and from a wide range of backgrounds instilled a drive for rich, grade-level appropriate instruction for all students. A lifelong learner herself, Hamilton found herself spending hours researching the best tools and strategies to support her students’ literacy.
“One of the greatest challenges I faced as a teacher was sorting through resources to know what would actually work for my students and also provide them with all of the content and skills they needed to be successful. There was often an ‘anti-program’ mindset during that period, and teachers - myself included - feared losing their creativity and autonomy. Ultimately, I was constantly overworking myself to try to parse together a systematic way to teach, but it always felt like something was missing from my instruction,” Hamilton said.
This passion and pursuit led her to implementing structured literacy and multisensory learning in her classroom around 2015. She attended a professional learning event that introduced her to what had been missing from her teaching: systematic, direct phonics instruction. Hamilton had always included the essential components of reading (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension) in her instruction, but when it came to phonemic awareness and phonics, she lacked a sequence and explicit, systematic approach.
During Hamilton’s time in the DPS at KDE, she facilitated the revision of the Kentucky Academic Standards (KAS) for Reading and Writing and supported the implementation of the standards through creating and curating resources on KYstandards.org. She also directed the Read to Achieve grant and the Summer Boost: Reading and Mathematics program. Both of these experiences further convinced Hamilton of the need for comprehensive supports for teachers to deliver structured literacy instruction.
“I always had a burning feeling that something was missing from my instruction. My students developed a love for reading and writing in my class, and they began seeing reading as a powerful, worthwhile tool for knowledge-building. Even my students who struggled with reading enjoyed being in my class and made gains in oral language comprehension. I ensured all of my students experienced grade-level, complex text through reading aloud, audio recordings, partner reading and the support of parent and community volunteers. But, that wasn’t enough. I knew those struggling readers would continue to be struggling readers beyond third grade. I just didn’t know what to do about it,” Hamilton said.
During her tenure as the elementary literacy consultant at KDE, Hamilton expanded her understanding of structured literacy and how the essential components of reading fit into the structured literacy approach. She has also seen the benefits of comprehensive, high-quality instructional resources to support systematic and explicit literacy instruction that builds on foundational skills, allowing students to truly shift from “learning to read” to “reading to learn” by the time they reach third grade.
Because of Hamilton’s extensive knowledge of the KAS for Reading and Writing, she is able to make valuable connections between how the brain learns to read and Kentucky’s grade-level expectations. She is in year two of LETRS for Educators training as a participant in the Kentucky Reading Academies and began LETRS for Administrators training last fall. These state agency experiences along with her classroom experiences will guide Hamilton as she goes to work for the central Kentucky area, advocating for teachers to have the resources and knowledge she feels she was missing as a classroom teacher.
Hamilton stated, “Now that I know better, I want to make sure others know better, too. I am hungry to ensure no one else spends years feeling like something is missing from their instruction.”
Whitney has a bachelor of arts in elementary education and a master’s in elementary education from Eastern Kentucky University (EKU). She earned a Rank I through Kentucky’s Continuing Education Option (CEO) and a master of arts in administration with principal certification from EKU.
Hamilton resides in Richmond, KY, and is the mother of two teenagers, Maddox (16) and Hallie (13).
This concludes the State Regional Literacy Directors DEL Spotlight series. If you missed the previous spotlights in this series, read the February 6, February 13, February 20 and February 27 editions.
 Kentucky Reads to Succeed Summer Conference Date Announced
The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) Office of Teaching and Learning (OTL) Division of Early Literacy invites you to the first annual Kentucky Reads to Succeed Summer Conference on June 20, 2024 at the Central Bank Center, formerly the Lexington Convention Center.
Keynote speaker and educational journalist Emily Hanford, host of the Sold a Story podcast – the second-most-shared show on Apple Podcasts in 2023 and one of Time magazine’s top three podcasts of the year – has been covering education for American Public Media since 2008. She has won numerous awards for her work, including the EWA Public Service Award in 2019 for Hard Words and the 2017 Excellence in Media Reporting on Education Research Award from the American Educational Research Association.
The conference will require registration, but is FREE to Kentucky K-12 public educators and will offer focused learning pathways to meet the needs of teachers and administrators. Attendees will learn from KDE OTL consultants and partners about:
- Evidence-based instructional shifts for literacy;
- The benefits of structured literacy;
- Why high-quality instructional resources matter; and
- Available resources for implementing the Read to Succeed Act.
Mark your calendar for this June 20 event. Registration information will be coming soon.
Early Literacy Newsletter Archive
Did you miss last week's Early Literacy Newsletter? You can access all previous editions of the newsletter on the Early Literacy webpage.
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