Emma Nahna

Based in a small rural town in New Zealand, Emma Nahna established Sound Foundations for Literacy in 2019 to provide professional support and quality teaching resources to educators and parents. With a 20 year background in Speech Language Therapy and a passion for literacy, oral language, and sharing learning with others, Emma works as a Literacy Coach partnering with schools around New Zealand. In 2024, she contributed to writing New Zealand’s refreshed national English curriculum, ensuring it reflected the best evidence on effective language and literacy instruction.

Emma empowers schools to evaluate and improve literacy outcomes at a whole-school systems level by: 

• using evidence aligned assessment tools to identify priority literacy target areas
• using data to inform and monitor teaching and learning 
• building deep knowledge and practical skills in structured literacy for educators to develop children's speaking, listening, reading, and writing
• coaching to build a continuous improvement model where teams reflect, set goals, plan and evaluate together, with children’s learning squarely at the centre.