ABOUT KAY DE VEER
Key Learning supports all students who would benefit from personalized educational support in a private setting. Key Learning provides private specialized tutoring, comprehensive educational assessments, educational intervention, and child-first advocacy for families and students navigating educational or social challenges.
“Kay is an incredibly unique and gifted educator and any child that’s in her hands is a lucky one!”
Kay de Veer, M.Ed, ET/P
Founder, Educational Therapist & Consultant
Background & Education
Kay lives in Santa Barbara, CA, with her husband and 2 kids. Kay has been a passionate and driven educator for 13 years. Before becoming an educational therapist she was an elementary school teacher, as well as a founding teacher at a small private school in San Francisco.
Kay received her Bachelor of Science in Liberal Studies as well as her multiple-subject teaching credential at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. She received her masters in education (Cum Laude) and Educational Therapy Certificate at Holy Names University. Kay is a proud member of the Association of Educational Therapist (AET), professional certified level.
In her graduate degree education, Kay studied neuropsychology, the brain and its relationship to learning, research-based remediation strategies, academic assessment, social emotional-learning and human development. After focusing her master's thesis work on the vestibular system and its relationship to learning, Kay makes it a priority to integrate research- based movement, multi-sensory activities and visualization into all of her sessions. Kay regularly attends trainings and conferences on neuro-diversity and educational research.
Published Work, Presentations & Press
Kay has been a presenter at various national conferences such as the student goals at Highlander's Blended and Personalized Learning Conference, Educational Resources INC Anual Conference, and the Toddler Play Conference in 2023. Her vestibular system research paper was published nationally in the Educational Therapist Journal and she was featured on the cover of Montecito Neighbor’s September issue in 2019. Kay is also the co-founder of a small business, TechWiseLittles, that supports parents in creating healthy tech boundaries for their young children.
Trainings and Experience
MATHEMATICS
READING & WRITING
- Orton Gillingham
- Lindamood Bell LIPS
- Teacher's College Reading and Writing Workshop
- Read Naturally
- K-5 Handwriting Without Tears
SOCIAL & EMOTIONAL
- Kimochis Social Emotional Curriculum
- SuperFlex
- Zones of Regulation
- S'cool Moves- Research based movement for learning
Specialties
DIVERSE LEARNING PROFILES
- Executive functioning difficulties
- Dyslexia
- Sensory processing based learning challenges
- ADHD
- Short Term memory difficulties
- Working memory difficulties
- Auditory processing based learning challenges
- Visual processing based learning challenges
READING AND WRITING
- Phonics and phonemic awareness
- Phonological processing
- Letter formation and handwriting
- Written expression and ideation
- Reading fluency, accuracy and comprehension
MATHEMATICS
- Number sense
- Numeracy
- Numbers and operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division)
- Fact Fluency
OTHER
- Organization
- Student agency
- Confidence