Stephanie Newman is a co-founder and Executive Director of Literacy Tree. Her earliest memory that started her on the mission to give children the civil right of literacy was when she was 16, and told her mother that one day she wanted to teach a child to read.  Even at an early age, she understood the life-changing effects of giving a child the gift of literacy. 

In 2001 she began her teaching career in a Middle School in Queens, NY teaching disadvantaged students ELA, and piloting, modeling, and coaching colleagues to adopt a new literacy program that the school was implementing at the time.  She learned early in her career the importance of teachers and staff working together to get results for their students.

Life brought Stephanie and her husband Adam (co-founder of Literacy Tree) to Maryland, where she continued her teaching career in a diverse community until they started a family.  When their son, Zachary, was diagnosed with dyslexia, Stephanie saw the opportunity and need to learn about language-based learning disabilities, and the best way to work with dyslexic students to teach them to read successfully. She was trained in Orton Gillingham, a program based on Structured Literacy that was specifically written to teach students with dyslexia and other language-based learning differences to read.  She worked with her son, as well as dyslexic students in her community, to quickly improve their reading foundation and was always amazed at how much progress they made just by receiving the right kind of instruction, when their schools were unable to provide it.  

Stephanie and Adam quickly realized how many struggling readers around the country they could save from falling through the cracks at their schools, if they could reach them, and teach them like she taught her son and the students in her community. In 2019, the Literacy Tree was “planted”! 

With the combined expertise of Stephanie and Adam, a lifelong social entrepreneur and expert at scaling companies, and their growing team of highly experienced, passionate, knowledgeable Reading Specialists from around the country, the Literacy Tree program was written, tested and proven and has now has helped hundreds of students around the country to read on grade level, and it has changed their lives. Literacy Tree is now working to make their program even more accessible to struggling young readers wherever they are, both at home and in school.

Stephanie has a BA in Literature & Rhetoric from Binghamton University, and a MA. Ed from Hunter College in NYC.