About us

Karena Nelson, Founder 

The seed that would grow into Open Door Literacy was planted in March of 2020.  Like millions of parents around the world, I had a child who was suddenly home from public school due to the pandemic.  Since I already had 2 degrees in education and 20+ years of teaching experience, I thought "how hard can it be to teach one kindergartener to read?"  It was much harder than I thought.  But I followed the trail of reading research, slowly gaining traction and a nerdy appreciation for the neuroscience behind how the brain learns to read and the history of all those tricky spelling patterns.  As my own child became more and more proficient in reading, I grew interested in helping others and eventually completed a second master's focused specifically on how people learn to read.  I love witnessing the growth in confidence that occurs when someone shifts from struggling with words to recognizing them with ease. As well as teaching individuals to read, I also draw on my background in teacher preparation and community activism to work on increasing access to high quality, evidence-based literacy instruction.  More about my qualifications and career history can be found at Linkedin.