Meet The Instructors: Kim Collins

Around the country, dedicated teaching professionals who are trained in Orton-Gillingham by the Institute for Multi-Sensory Education are helping their fellow educators become proficient in learning techniques that are unleashing the learning potential for thousands of students.

IMSE’s trainers know the daily challenges teachers face when trying to meet students’ literacy needs — because they’ve been there themselves.

Simply put: Our instructors are teachers who teach teachers.

As part of the Journal’s ‘Meet The Instructors’ series, we’re profiling these passionate trainers who are putting their knowledge to use — be it with students, or other teachers.

Instructor Kim Collins said she remembers the moment she knew she wanted to educate other teachers in IMSE’s Orton-Gillingham.

Collins, an alum of North Carolina’s Appalachian State University and American College of Education in Indiana, said she had already been using IMSE’s Orton-Gillingham in the classroom for about seven or eight years before landing a spot as an instructor.

As a teacher in 2009, Collins said she was a reading specialist looking to put more tools in her tool kit. She and a colleague took a course with the Institute for Multi-Sensory Education and Collins was instantly hooked.

Trainer Kim Collins was an IMSE-trained teacher before becoming a trainer.

“I looked to her and said, ‘Oh my gosh, one day, we are going to train this,'” Collins told the Journal.

She kept the idea in the back of her mind for several years until she reached a point in her career and personal life about a year and a half ago that she could finally make the switch from IMSE Orton-Gillingham user to IMSE Orton-Gillingham trainer.

Though she knew of other specialized reading programs, her experience as a teacher with IMSE’s Orton-Gillingham made the choice to work with them obvious, she said.

“I saw how successful it was from using it with students,” Collins said.

From those in the general education population, to special ed, to English Language Learners and all in between, Collins said she knew from experience IMSE’s Orton-Gillingham was something she could stand behind because she watched it work in action.

When she’s not teaching educators how to use IMSE’s Orton-Gillingham, Collins said she’s working for her home state’s education agency and spending time with her family.

Overall, it’s been great to be able to spread her passion for teaching and IMSE to others, she said.

“I’ve seen how it impacts all kids,” she said. “I really feel like it’s the best training.”