Deb Kardane, M.Ed., Affiliate Faculty in the Department of Education, currently teaches in the Integrated Learning Program. She founded and coordinates the Intern Residency Partnership Program with Brattleboro Elementary Schools in Vermont, where select students from the Integrated Learning program complete their internship as paid resident-interns. She currently teaches the course: Reading/Literacy Teaching Methods and also continues to teach 3^rd grade students at Academy Elementary in Brattleboro. Past courses include: The First Six Weeks and Early Childhood Education. Deb has also co-taught Reading Methods and Children’s Literature at the University of Massachusetts where she is currently pursuing her doctoral degree in Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies. Her research interests include: the role of academic language in students’ access of school based texts, the development of teacher designed literacy practices that support under-served populations of students and the power of university-public school partnerships in the training of new teachers.