Edith Kerns is a Lower School teacher for Carolina Day’s Key School and has been with CDS since 2022. Born and raised in Raleigh, NC, she earned a B.S. degree from Appalachian State University in 1994 in Elementary Education. She and her family lived in Wilmington, NC, and she used her degree to homeschool her four children from 2005–2016. After moving to Kansas in 2016, she returned to the classroom and taught first grade in a small parochial school from 2016–2020. During those four years, she pursued training with AOGPE at the Associate Level, which she used in private tutoring as well as in her classroom. In 2020, she created her own website, edithkerns.com, to support and encourage fellow educators and parents about the world of dyslexia and Orton-Gillingham resources. That same year, Cair Paravel Latin School (Topeka, KS) hired her to create a new intervention program for reading and math with their K-8th grade students. To continue her own learning, Edith did further training with ALTA in 2021 and became a CALP in 2022. She returned to NC in the summer of 2022 for the sole purpose of joining the Key Learning Center. She has a sincere passion for struggling learners as a mother of two dyslexic children of her own. She is a firm believer in early intervention and takes great joy in providing the support that these students need to be successful.

Get to know Edith Kerns:

What is your favorite quote about education, mentorship, children, and/or learning?

I have two quotes that are framed and hanging in my classroom. They inspire me as well as many of my students. Albert Einstein is credited for saying: “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” And the other is by Mary Anne Radmacher—“Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’”

What books and authors inspire you, your curriculum, and your classroom? Why? 

I recently added a new book to my personal library: A Walk in The Words by Hudson Talbott and it has become a new favorite. Amazon describes it best: “Hudson Talbott’s inspiring story vividly reveals the challenges—and ultimately the rewards—of being a nonmainstream kind of learner. When Hudson Talbott was a little boy, he loved drawing, and it came naturally to him. But reading? No way! One at a time, words weren’t a problem, but long sentences were a struggle. As his friends moved on to thicker books, he kept his slow reading a secret. But that got harder every year. He felt alone, lost, and afraid in a world of too many words.”

“Fortunately, his love of stories wouldn’t let him give up. He started giving himself permission to read at his own pace, using the words he knew as stepping-stones to help draw him into a story. And he found he wasn’t so alone—in fact, lots of brilliant people were slow readers, too. Learning to accept the fact that everyone does things in their own unique way, and that was okay, freed him up and ultimately helped Hudson thrive and become the fabulous storyteller he is today.” This book inspires me as well as many of my students.