Science of Reading Strategies for Joyful Pre-K Early Literacy Environments

About the Presenters

Scott Moore has spent over two decades expanding access to preschool for California’s children and families. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Kidango, a leading preschool and childcare non-profit organization serving low-income families in the San Francisco Bay Area. Prior to Kidango, Scott was the Chief Policy Advisor for Early Edge California, where he designed and advocated for the policy that established the new transitional kindergarten grade and the consolidated California State Preschool Program. These policy victories increase Pre-K access to over 500,000 children a year. In 2014, Scott served as a Senior Fellow at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley. In 2011, he was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to be Executive Director of the California Early Learning Advisory Council, and in 2019 was appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom to serve on the California Early Childhood Policy Council.

Nora Goodale is the Regional Director for Kidango and has worked for Kidango since 2010. Her career with Kidango started as an internal substitute teacher for a few months, then Associate Teacher for five years, followed by seven years as a Center Director in three different Kidango centers. She has been in the Regional Director position since March 2024.

Nora holds an associate degree in early childhood education from Chabot College and a bachelor’s degree in human development, with a concentration in childhood development from Cal State University East Bay. She also graduated as an elementary school teacher in Mexico, where she worked as a kindergarten and elementary school teacher for 13 years in both private and public settings before moving to the United States.

Emily Grunt is the Director of Early Learning for Collaborative Classroom. She has over 18 years of experience in education, including teaching in TK and kindergarten classrooms, coaching and training for SEEDS of Learning™, and serving as Program Director for FluentSeeds, which became part of the Collaborative Classroom family of resources in 2024. Emily participated in the 2022 Promising Ventures Fellowship and was a 2022-2024 Dial EE Fellow, with a focus on continuous improvement and program quality in the TK early childhood environment. She has been a SIPPS-certified trainer since 2018, holds an administrative credential from Reach Institute for School Leadership, and a K-8 BCLAD credential from Cal State University Long Beach. Emily resides in the Bay Area with her husband, two children, and rescue pup, Meggie.