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GEORGIA CALLAGHAN 

SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL CONSULTANT

Georgia has extensive experience and knowledge in many areas of Special Education and has worked with students with literacy problems from a variety of disabilities and culturally diverse backgrounds.

Degree in psychology and a Masters in Special Education both at Macquarie University.
2011 presenter at the Early Childhood Intervention Australia NSW Chapter Conference.
2012 received the ‘Lee Mills Teacher Education Award’ from the Australian Association of Special Education (AASE) for her paper Levelling the playing field for kindergarten entry: Research implications for preschool early literacy instruction.
2012 paper published in the ‘Australasian Journal of Early Childhood’. It was a featured article on the Early Childhood Australia website.

Georgia spent four years at the Macquarie University Special Education Centre’s Special School where she taught the MULTILIT program to low progress readers and provided assistance with research-based initiatives. Following this she moved overseas and was sponsored by Denver Public Schools in the United States where she taught for four years as a Special Education Teacher. In this role she provided school wide leadership for implementing a new literacy program as the lead teacher for literacy. As a member of the Peer Assistance Team she provided teaching strategies to classroom teachers for students considered academically at risk  and was also the Staffing Chair of the Special Education Team.In recognition of her extensive progress with students with special needs, Denver Public School’s Area Superintendent presented Georgia with a teaching award in 2002.

Since returning to Australia she has been involved in the development of many of MultiLit’s Programs as a Senior Product Development Manager. As senior Product Development Manager Georgia consulted on the Revised Reading Tutor Program. She also played a key role in developing the MultiLit Word Attack extension program, the MiniLit program and the writing of the PreLit program. Georgia’s research into the development of early literacy skills was used as the rationale for the PreLit program.  She wrote and developed training materials for the various MultiLit programs, including the Reading Tutor program, The MultiLit Word Attack Extension program, the MiniLit program and the PreLit program and conducted training workshops in these programs, across Australia. Georgia’s teaching features in all of the Multilit training videos. Georgia provided ongoing consultancy to teachers implementing the MultiLit programs in Cape York and through the Exodus foundation that had tutorial centres located in Ashfield, Redfern, and Darwin. Children attending these centres were of lower socio economic background, and had poor literacy skills. Children in Cape York were primarily indigenous and other centres included indigenous children as well as others from culturally diverse backgrounds. Georgia gave observations and written evaluations of tutors implementing the programs and monitored the progress of children’s literacy skills through data collected by the tutorial centres. She was also involved in consultancy for schools using the MultiLit program.

Georgia is currently working for PosAbility as a Special Education Consultant and providing consultancy to schools in Literacy. She specialises in educational assessments of students who are academically at risk and offers individualised programs in literacy and maths for children that are lagging behind their peers in these two fundamental areas. She is particularly experienced with working with children who are considered dyslexic or who have behavioural issues that stem from ADHD or emotional disorders. Where possible, Georgia also collaborates with her student’s classroom teachers as part of a holistic approach in supporting the student’s academic needs.