LifeChanger of the Year Nominee Profile

Nayeli Coronado-Collazo was nominated anonymously.

Ms. Coronado-Collazo strongly believes that creating a positive classroom environment starts with building relationships. She believes children learn best when they feel safe, loved, and accepted for who they are. From the moment students walk through the door, she wants them to know they belong and that the classroom is a place where they are encouraged to be curious, make mistakes, and grow.

Ms. Coronado-Collazo works hard to build trust with each child by getting to know their personalities, celebrating their successes, and supporting them through challenges. She focuses on teaching kindness, empathy, and respect through everyday interactions and by modeling those behaviors herself. She loves to use positive encouragement to build confidence and help them recognize that effort and perseverance are just as important as getting the right answer! It's all about the process!

In Ms. Coronado-Collazo's Pre-K classroom, learning is hands-on, engaging, and filled with lots of opportunities to explore and make sense of the world. She encourages students to ask lots of questions, take learning risks, and become independent thinkers. Some of her favorite moments are when she sees a child accomplish something they once thought they couldn't do or proudly share a new discovery with their classmates!

At the beginning of the year, their pages are often filled with scribbles, random lines, and colorful drawings. To many people, those marks may not look like much, but to her students, they represent ideas, imagination, and the very beginning of literacy. Many students have never held a pencil with confidence or believed they could tell a story on paper.

Throughout the year, Ms. Coronado-Collazo intentionally guides students through the writing process. They learn that every author starts with an idea. Their scribbles slowly become purposeful illustrations. Those illustrations begin to include mock letters and letter-like shapes. Soon they recognize the letters in their own names, begin writing real letters, and eventually connect those letters together through phonetic spelling to create words and simple sentences. Before they know it, they are proudly calling themselves authors and illustrators, publishing books they are excited to read aloud to their classroom friends and families. 

One of the most rewarding moments for Ms. Coronado-Collazo is seeing the spark in her students' eyes when they realize, just how they "did it". Watching their confidence grow as they discover that their thoughts, stories, and experiences matter is truly priceless. Those moments create lifelong readers, writers, and learners. These journals also become a beautiful record of each child's growth. Comparing a journal entry from August to one from May tells an incredible story, it always amazes Ms. Coronado-Collazo just how far they've come. It is not simply academic progress, but of perseverance, creativity, confidence, and pride. Families are always amazed to see how much their children have grown in just one school year, and the journals become treasured keepsakes that capture their first year of school!