Joanna Merrithey

Director, ELA

Joanna started her career with CSA Education right out of college, quickly working her way up to become the Director of ELA.  Along her journey, Joanna worked as an editor and studied under the guidance of many well-respected phonics experts with decades of contribution to the curriculum development industry.  Recognizing her talents, which include excellent communication skills, creative problem solving, and synthesis of materials, Joanna began managing projects and learning the skills needed to integrate lesson plans into a final cohesive product.  She took those skills, added her own congenial and outgoing personality, and has successfully become an effective Director of ELA.

Throughout her tenure, Joanna has been a consistent and reliable team member, actively contributing to a variety of programs and products for publishers such as Pearson, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and McGraw-Hill Education, as well as Benchmark and EMC School.  Joanna manages, writes, edits, and leads teams in developing thoughtful student materials and teacher’s guides for projects relating to the following:

• Creating foundational skills lessons for ELL vocabulary and spelling, both print and digital
• Collaborating with publishers to understand the vision and create prototypes for projects
• Writing exemplar essays for teacher’s guides and providing clear instruction for educators
• Writing student lesson consumables for handwriting skills
• Creatively developing student activities, word games, and infographics
• Creating ancillary materials for students and educators for preK–8 social studies lessons
• Managing fact-checking projects for publishers, including National Geographic, in the sciences and social studies
• Mentoring teams to write and edit evidence-based assessment questions across reading, science, social studies, and math

Joanna is respected and highly regarded by all.  She is successful in maintaining a collaborative line of communication with clients while encouraging and motivating her team.  Her attitude is a gift to those around her, and she has an exceptional ability to mentor and teach newer editors.

Joanna earned her BS in Print Journalism from University of Illinois, Champaign–Urbana, and continues to support educational endeavors as a volunteer reader within her community.  Joanna works to ignite a passion for books, storytelling, reading, and learning in young people through her professional and personal work.