Profile of Mrs. Joan Spencer Ernandez

Joan Spencer-Ernandez is a Lecturer in Special Education in the School of Education.   She spent seven years as the Testing and Measurement Specialist in The Caribbean Centre of Excellence for Teacher Training (CCETT), UWI.  While in the CCETT Project, Mrs. Ernandez developed the first regional test of reading standards administered to students in Grades 1 to 3 in eight Caribbean countries.  The test was based on a common set of standards published in The Caribbean Standards for Reading and Writing (2003), also developed by her.  Mrs. Spencer-Ernandez is a trained teacher and she holds a B.Sc. Degree (Hons.) in Varying Exceptionalities and a Masters degree in Reading and Learning Disabilities, with an emphasis on Testing and Measurement, from Teachers’ College, Columbia University, New York.

In addition to teaching in Jamaica and the USA, Mrs. Spencer-Ernandez has worked as Special Educator/Psychometrician at the Mico CARE Centre, and as a Learning and Behaviour Specialist in Grand Cayman.  She also served as Executive Director of The Learning Centre, Jamaica Association for Children with Learning Disabilities.  As a passionate advocate for children with exceptional needs, Mrs. Spencer-Ernandez has been a past President of the Jamaica Association for the Gifted and Talented and a Member of the Task force for the Education of the Gifted and Talented (1990) and the National Task Force on Educational Reform (2004). Among her publications are Pockets of Excellence (Task Force Report on the Gifted and Talented, 1991), Strategies for the Teaching of Reading and Writing: A Practical Guide for Teachers of Caribbean Children (2006), The Caribbean CETT Diagnostic Tests of Essential Reading and Writing Skills (2006), and The Caribbean Standards for Reading and Writing, Grades K to 3 (2003).