What I kept running into
- Instruction designed for a median student who doesn't exist, leaving everyone above or below that line to adapt alone
- Curriculum priorities that shift with each change in school leadership, so third grade and fifth grade can rest on incompatible foundations
- A decades-long lag between what research establishes and what reaches a classroom, with researchers, teacher training, and policymakers rarely in the same conversation
- Subjects taught in separate rooms by separate teachers, with no expectation that any of it connects
- Executive function treated as something a student either has or doesn't, and addressed only once a diagnosis is attached
- Parents given no clear picture of what got skipped, or when
My Story
I'm Alissa Harbani, the creator and sole instructor behind Foundations First. I've worked in educational roles since 2018 as a music coach, ski instructor, Academic Success interventionist, and tutor for students of all ages. My learning philosophy values connections across domains, which drew me to the IB curriculum in high school and to undergraduate work in Bioengineering, Music Performance, and Applied Mathematics. That breadth is what sets my methodology apart: I look at every context that shapes how a student makes meaning.
I started Foundations First because the same problems kept surfacing in every setting I worked in. Reading is the clearest case. Structured literacy has been well supported since the 1990s and still took decades to reach most classrooms: a federal phonics push failed, and balanced literacy held the confidence of teachers whose training never told them otherwise. Researchers, teacher preparation, and policy weren't talking to each other, and students spent thirty years in the gap.
So I read the research myself, from primary studies rather than summaries, and update my methods as new work comes out. Working one-on-one, I can act on a finding the same month I read it.
Executive function is where that gap is widest. Planning, working memory, self-monitoring, and emotional regulation shape every part of a life, and almost no one is assigned to teach them; help usually arrives only once a diagnosis is attached. You shouldn't need a medical evaluation to learn how to start a task. Coaching held apart from the coursework stays general. Because I'm inside the assignment with a student, I can see where things break down and work on it there.
I'm also a product of the school systems many of my students attend: an alumna of Lake Washington School District and its Highly Capable Program (Quest), and an IB candidate through Northshore. I have ADHD, identified when I was nearly 18 because I did well enough on paper that no one looked. I pair that experience with current research to adapt instruction for students with ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dyscalculia, giftedness/2E, and other learning differences (also called learning disabilities), including those with an IEP or 504 plan.
Relevant education & experience
- B.S. in Bioengineering and B.A. in Music, with a minor in Applied Mathematics, from the University of Washington
- University-level coursework in biology, general chemistry, physics, geology, and engineering
- Substantial practice reading and synthesizing primary academic literature — the skill that lets me work from original studies rather than summaries of them
- Hands-on laboratory work, engineering practice, and applied computational modeling
- Ongoing focus on current topics and debates in scientific research
Where my applied science background shows outside of science
In science and math sessions this background is doing obvious work. It also shows up somewhere less expected: I design and 3D-print original educational manipulatives — physical objects a student can hold while working through a concept. That includes literacy, where tactile and kinesthetic work matters most for students with dyslexia. When a student needs to hold a morpheme in their hands, I can build the thing instead of hoping a worksheet does the job.
Let's talk about your student.
Book a free, no-obligation consultation and I'll follow up personally within one business day.