Christy Hermann Thompson

Christy Hermann Thompson is a literacy coach with Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia and a former first-grade teacher near Washington, DC. She has also worked as a reading teacher and with preK–2nd grade students, with her work focused on listening to and learning from young children’s talk.

She is the coauthor, with Kassia Omohundro Wedekind, of Hands Down, Speak Out: Listening and Talking Across Literacy and Math K–5. The book is described as centered on student-led conversation and “hands-down” discussions that shift the teacher out of the role of primary speaker.