Reading Specialist, Alpha - $100,000/year USD

Full-time on-site position at a single Alpha campus: Phoenix, AZ; Oklahoma City or Tulsa, OK; Fort Worth (Keller), Dallas, Plano, or The Woodlands, TX; or Park City (Salt Lake City), UT. Relocation assistance available.

About Alpha

Join the team building school around student growth. Alpha reimagines the school day around faster learning, stronger mentorship, and more time for students to build real-world skills. Roles with real student impact: Alpha hires teachers (guides), operators, admissions experts, school & curriculum leaders, and remote team members. Education work that pays like it matters: Alpha offers six-figure roles for people ready to help build a radically better school experience. A culture built for builders: Alpha is fast-moving, ambitious, and student focused. It’s for people who want to improve the system, not maintain it. Alpha is where you can do the most meaningful work of your career.

Responsibilities

• Creating and facilitating small-group K-2 reading workshops rooted in structured-literacy approaches (Orton-Gillingham, Wilson, LETRS, IMSE, or equivalent), informed by live student data
• Facilitating daily motivation sessions that ensure 100% of students meet their weekly adaptive-app targets, employing Alpha's motivational framework (school currency, leaderboards, age-appropriate gamification)
• Conducting and evaluating running records, fluency probes, and decoding assessments to monitor progress and inform next-session instruction
• Analyzing AI-generated performance data from Alpha's adaptive learning platforms to differentiate instruction in the moment, not only during planning
• Serving as the relatable, high-energy adult your K-2 students anticipate seeing daily
• Providing structured-literacy instruction that produces measurable acceleration in K-2 reading outcomes across phonics, fluency, and decoding

What You Won’t Be Doing

• Implementing a published reading curriculum, scripted program, or district pacing guide; you create lessons directly from student data
• Presenting lectures to a full classroom; all teaching occurs in small, targeted groups while students work through academic subjects on adaptive apps
• Serving as a reading consultant, teacher coach, or district-level specialist; you remain in the classroom with students every day
• Running traditional classroom blocks — subject-by-subject lectures, homework checks, test preparation; your scheduled time is devoted to workshops, motivation sessions, and data-driven small groups
• Grading homework or issuing report cards; student advancement is tracked through app data and your running records

Requirements

Basic Requirements

• Structured-literacy certification (Orton-Gillingham, LETRS, Wilson Reading System, IMSE, CERI, Neuhaus, UFLI, or equivalent) OR a Master's degree in reading instruction
• Bachelor's degree in any field, plus 2+ years of full-time K-2 structured reading instruction within the past 5 years in a school or clinical environment, utilizing systematic phonics or structured literacy
• Proven ability to design independent reading lessons and articulate your instructional content and methods, without dependence on a published program
• Proven ability to assess reading progress and describe specific student improvements in areas such as fluency, accuracy, phonics, or decoding
• Willingness to work on-site full-time at one Alpha campus: Phoenix, AZ; Oklahoma City or Tulsa, OK; Fort Worth (Keller), Dallas, Plano, or The Woodlands, TX; or Park City (Salt Lake City), UT (relocation assistance available)
• Willingness to instruct all K-2 students (not exclusively struggling readers) and to incorporate AI and adaptive-learning technologies into daily teaching
• Legal authorization to work in the U.S. without visa sponsorship

Nice-to-have Requirements

• Direct experience with AI-powered or adaptive reading platforms (e.g., Amira, Lexia, i-Ready, Reading Plus) for instructional planning or student data review
• Experience in non-traditional or innovative educational models (charter, micro-school, Montessori, hybrid)
• Experience in performance, youth sports coaching, or otherwise engaging a K-2 audience beyond the reading classroom

Skills

You've built expertise in structured literacy: Orton-Gillingham, LETRS, Wilson, IMSE, or a Master's in reading instruction. You listen to a student's miscue, pinpoint the phonemic weakness, and craft a phonics lesson independent of scripted curricula. What sets you apart is that six-year-olds brighten the moment you enter. Your reading credentials open the door; your capacity to captivate a K-2 group for a 20-minute workshop is what secures the offer.

Schedule

• 40-hour workweek, entirely in-classroom with K-2 students

Pay

• $100,000/year salary, paid weekly

Benefits

• Health, dental, and vision benefits from day one

Prior to hire, you'll submit a brief video presenting an engaging story for young children and complete a full day on campus teaching K-2 students directly. Low energy with children will disqualify you, regardless of credential strength.