For over twenty years Enrica Sow taught elementary students in a variety of settings. She holds a Master’s Degree in Multicultural Literature and a Bachelor’s degree in Montessori Education (ages 6-9). She has taught in the United States, Mauritania, and United Arab Emirates in both public and private settings. Literacy is her passion. She left the classroom in 2019 to fill a gap in what she saw as a lack of sound reading intervention for struggling students. She wanted to bring forth a service accessible to disadvantaged students. English Decoders was founded on the premise of providing sound instruction using the Orton-Gillingham approach.
Enrica was born in Cincinnati, Ohio but moved to Los Angeles at the age of nine. Growing up the only child of a single parent was the perfect setting for this book lover! She got lost in picture books and eventually novels with very little interruption. No sibling to beg for a play partner! No meal time routine! She set her book down when she chose to do so. As a child, she read aloud to an audience of stuffed animals. When she got older, she selected challenging books that required her to read with a dictionary. She absolutely loved words and how they could be used to form images in a reader’s mind. At a young age, she dreamed of being a teacher. Once she became a teacher, she dreamed of being an author.
Enrica’s love of reading aloud to stuffed animals as child transitioned into her reading aloud to actual students. Her dramatic reading style flourished in the classroom. She loved how reading captivated the attention of her audience. When her students became rambunctious, she grabbed her reading chair, sat with her selected book and began reading. The children would rush over to grab a front row seat. Others that weren’t paying attention caught wind of it, grabbed their friend and came over right away. By the end of the first few sentences, the entire class was seated in front of Enrica listening intently. It was the best way to gain control. She captivated them with her dramatic style of reading.
When she is not teaching, tutoring or writing, Enrica enjoys quilting, Pure Barre classes, taking power walks, cooking, and nurturing plants. She is a married mother of five and a grandmother of two. Her bucket list items are to visit the Grand Canyon and Al Aqsa, spend a Ramadan in Mecca, find her ‘forever’ home, and learn classical Arabic.