About Lee-Ann and Rolf

Author, educator, and the heart behind SyllaSense!

Lee-Ann’s career began with a two-year teaching adventure in England, where she discovered her passion for teaching reading. When she returned to Canada, her quest to learn more about literacy instruction took her down a long and varied path. Beginning with Reading Recovery, her path soon branched off when a family member was diagnosed with Dyslexia, and she was introduced to the Orton Gillingham approach. It was around this time that she was introduced to decodable books for the first time.

Fascinated by the concept of decodable text, Lee-Ann started writing books for her kindergarten students. She was determined to write books that systematically introduced concepts, but were also fun, humorous, colourful, and engaging. The resulting books became the first-ever SyllaSense prototypes, and her students loved them! More importantly, they began to experience success with reading!

Every story has its ups and downs, and Lee-Ann’s is no different. While she received a great deal of moral support from friends, family, and her better half (a.k.a. Rolf), there wasn’t a big market for decodables at the time. Undaunted, Lee-Ann didn’t give up, and began the lengthy process of self-publishing.

Her learning didn’t stop, though, and never has. When Empower Reading was piloted in the York Region, Lee-Ann enthusiastically jumped on board as part of the pilot. She continued to learn by completing her 3-part specialist in both Reading and Special Education, and in 2021, she repeated her Associate Level Coursework in the Orton Gillingham Approach, this time with a 100-hour practicum.

Throughout these years, changes were happening in the field of literacy instruction. Slowly but surely, interest has increased in teaching literacy in a more structured and systematic way, and so has the demand for resources that support this. In May 2022, Lee-Ann made the exciting (but terrifying) decision to resign from teaching to focus on SyllaSense. Lee-Ann believes that classrooms are continually evolving, so she still regularly volunteers in classrooms to keep her teaching skills sharp.

Lee-Ann, a self-professed “word nerd”, loves to share what she has learned and what she is exploring. She continues to split her time between writing books, creating teacher resources, teaching in classrooms, and running workshops to help teachers learn more about structured literacy and using decodables. She considers herself extremely lucky to spend her days doing this fulfilling work, surrounded by an amazing team!

Rolf is Lee-Ann’s husband, business partner, and cheerleader.

Being the partner to a teacher is often challenging: not only do you have to support them as you raise your own family together, but you also support them as they try to help their kids at their school, or console them as they struggle to make progress. With a background working at large corporations building software systems, Rolf strives to find a deeper understanding of systems around him – always asking “why?” Lee-Ann loves it (yes, sarcasm) when he asks “Why” when it comes to early literacy. Why are you upset? Why is your student not learning? Why don’t you use different strategies? Why are your resources not good enough? Then finally the question: “Why don’t you try to do it yourself?”

Rolf has always worked behind the scenes at SyllaSense, learning the science, reviewing and editing, and helping with the operational aspects of running the business. It became too much to do as a moonlighting role, so Rolf finally gave in, quit his day job, and now gets paid to work for his wife – she was the boss before, it’s now just a formality 😉

When Rolf’s not fixing the plumbing, installing the telephones, taking photographs, or packing boxes, he can be found talking with lawyers, filing taxes, running payroll, building websites, forecasting cashflows, and more. It turns out that the CEO’s job is actually to do everything that is not already someone else’s job. He loves it, though, so don’t feel bad for him. He could not wish for a better job – working with great people, learning new things every day, solving meaningful problems, and helping to make the world a better place, one new reader at a time!