Melissa Orkin

Melissa Orkin, Ph.D., is a developmental psychologist and educator specializing in literacy development, learning disabilities, and achievement motivation. She directs Crafting Minds, an educational consulting practice that collaborates with public school districts and educational organizations to provide professional development and district-based consultation on topics including reading instruction, dyslexia, early literacy skills, and the use of technology in literacy. Dr. Orkin instructs on literacy development and learning disabilities at Tufts University and previously trained in the research, assessment, and remediation of reading and learning disabilities with Dr. Maryanne Wolf at the Tufts University Center for Reading and Language Research, where she served as a program director.

Orkin is co-author of The Structured Literacy Playbook: Preplanned Lessons for Building Phonics and Fluency Skills (DK Playbooks), written with Sarah Gannon and Alexandria Osburn, a research-based resource that provides structured approaches to teaching phonics and fluency for diverse learners. Through Crafting Minds, she has also contributed to related structured literacy routines and professional resources, including lesson sequences aligned with decodable texts and tools such as Decoding Duo and Morphology Anthology that support phonics and fluency instruction.