Wendy Tweedie

Wendy worked for many years teaching Reception and Year one. She then went on to  qualify as a specialist SpLD teacher and ran a Dyslexia Unit in a Secondary State School in Norfolk. Latterly she has been headteacher at the Bloomfield Learning Centre.  In this role she assessed and coached children between the ages of 6 and 15 with Specific Learning Difficulties from Southwark schools and surrounding boroughs.  She is also a Sounds~Write® trainer (a highly successful linguistic phonic programme for schools). Wendy finds it frustrating not finding suitable books for beginner readers since most schemes rely on the look and say method. It is clear to her that guessing at reading is not the way forward for many children, and this has led to the philosophy behind Phonic Books.

Tami Reis Frankfort

Tami started out teaching in an inner city primary school in London. When her two children were born she continued to work with children from ethnic minorities. Her interest in special needs drew her towards a Diploma in Specific Learning Difficulties. Since then she has taught special needs in an inner city secondary school and is now at the Bloomfield Learning Centre in London. She is convinced that phonics is the way forward in teaching to read and she has trained in both Phono-Graphix® and Sounds~Write® phonic programmes. She feels passionately about helping children become readers. Suitable reading materials which build up confidence and teach reading skills at the same time are few and far between. Dandelion Readers were created to meet that need.

Clair Baker

After completing a psychology degree and PGCE course Clair taught in a mainstream inner city school as a Reception teacher, Special Needs Coordinator and EMTAG support teacher for 10 years. Since having her own children, she has taught art in a school for visually impaired pupils from three to sixteen and has worked as a dyslexia assessor at the Bloomfield Learning Centre. She has always had a deep fascination with the power of visual imagery and has become increasingly excited by children's picture books since reading with her own children. It was this belief in the communication potential inherent in art and the ability of pictures to captivate and motivate the reader that inspired her illustrations for Dandelion Readers.