Jen MacDonald is an amazing educator.  When our daughter first started working with Jen, she was struggling so much with reading that it was impacting all aspects of her education as well as her self-esteem.  Jen’s experience, skill, passion, kindness, and  patience were just what our daughter needed to develop appropriate strategies,
gain confidence, and finally experience success with reading.  In the span of eight months, our daughter progressed from scoring in the 9th percentile on the reading portion of the NWEA (standardized assessment) to scoring above the 70th percentile. More importantly, she now initiates reading a variety of materials and no longer says, “I’m the worst reader in my class”.  We are very thankful that our daughter has had the opportunity to work with and learn from Jen MacDonald. 

Julie & John Cook

Jen has been helping my special needs son for approximately five years. Jen is committed to producing programs and schedules to work within the school day, summer break and to collaborate, when necessary, with my son’s providers. My son has made significant progress in reading, writing, reading comprehension and math. Jen understands what my son needs each day to make each session successful and to continue to progress his learning.  Jen is wonderful and not sure what we would do without her!

Mother of a nine-year-old

Jen has been amazing with our children.  She has taken the time to individually assess them and set up a learning plan to fit their needs and learning style.  With noticeable gaps appearing after virtual school/COVID shutdowns, she was invaluable in bringing our kids back up to speed and beyond!  Working with Jen has been some of the best money we have ever spent!

Dr.’s Laura and Michael Howe

We knew our daughter was struggling with reading but it wasn’t until her second grade teacher told us she couldn’t get her to grade level by the end of the year that we sprang into action. We wanted to keep her confidence up and foster a lifelong love for reading. We found Jen through word of mouth from a trusted friend and she has been an absolute gift since day one. Her detailed assessment, involvement of both parents and focused individual child based instruction started us immediately on the right track. We were welcomed into her sessions and had clear communication of ways we could help our daughter at home. We brought her twice a week and she actually looked forward to seeing Jen because she knew she was in a safe space and that the process was working. Jen is kind, patient and gives your child the tools to understand how to read and problem solve. She is constantly evaluating and motivating all of us to tackle the next challenge. Jen has exceeded our expectations and set our daughter up for success. Happy to report she is at grade level, confident in her skills and even trying to teach her younger sister to read now.

Colin & Amanda Seguin

Jen has worked with our children for over 5 years and in many different capacities. From keeping our children engaged in reading new material that was hand selected to challenge them through Book Smartly, to regularly assessing growth benchmarks in various subject matters to ensure progress was being made in the areas they needed development, Jen has been critical in the forward progression of our children’s educational paths. She has helped us with regular tutoring, curriculum progress when we homeschooled, and supporting us as we navigated the daunting IEP evaluation process once we were back to in-personal learning at a school. She is amazing at communicating with others on our children’s team and advocating for each of their needs as students and human beings. Our children adore her and we cannot speak enough on how impactful she has been for our family!

John & Shannon Aikin

Jen MacDonald is truly remarkable. Given the opportunity, she is able to fill a crucial niche in a developing child’s life that is sorely missing much too often.

A 13-year-old girl came into our life who was largely broken. She had an absent father, a fractured relationship with her mother, and a very low self image. She hated school and was failing with a GPA of 0.9.

We called Jen and within two weeks she effected a huge turning point which led to a heartwarming come back.

She met with both the girl and her mother, gained their trust immediately, and learned a great deal about her situation and her history. She gave them hope. She initiated a dialogue between them that has led to unexpected healing. She made very specific recommendations for counseling.

She reviewed all available prior school records, including aptitude and intelligence tests. Then, after performing her own evaluation, Jen presented a VERY helpful easy-to-understand summary of her strengths and weaknesses. It became obvious that she was in the wrong school and learning environment for her needs, which brought about an immediate change to a different school with an entirely different atmosphere and approach to teaching.

It’s about six months later and this 13-year-old is blossoming. She smiles and is much more engaging. She’s getting nearly all ‘A’s in her classes. Last month she was chosen “Student-of-the-Month”.

Dr. Mark & Julie Leslie

Jen’s support was essential in giving our daughter the extra boost she needed, particularly during the pandemic when it’s so easy for kids to get off track. Jen has knack for teaching that really helped connect the dots for our daughter, who went from resisting reading to curling up on the couch with a book without our prompting. We highly recommend Sea Bean Consulting.

Heather & Jay Harrington

We first reached out to Jen because our daughter was at the point where she was so frustrated with reading that she was ready to totally give up! Jen was able to assess our daughter and work with her at a pace that was comfortable. Throughout our journey Jen was always collaborating with us as parents giving us updates on Stella’s progress and suggestions of what we could do at home with her. Jen would ask our daughter what she was interested in and would find books that she loved, at her reading level, and that also offered a bit of a challenge. After working with Jen for a year we watched our daughter’s confidence with reading grow and I can honestly say that Jen MacDonald is the reason our daughter now loves to read!

Kecia and B.J. Brick

Our family has known Jen about 18 months and she worked with both of our sons. One needed help with reading; he was a full grade level behind despite having the reading specialist at school. In about three months, he made incredible progress and now is above grade level. She helped him strengthen his confidence and try new tools to meet challenges head on. Our other son had a different challenge–being bored in math class, yet also afraid of making a mistake. She has worked with him on enrichment topics and given him the ability to practice without perfection. Jen has a combination of intuition and experience to “read” kids and provide them the safe place they need to grow and learn. We have already recommended her to several friends and will continue to do so.

Dr. Angela Pohl

Jen has done a great job of connecting with my son making him feel comfortable and open to learning. She utilizes various teaching modalities to maximize his learning experience. Also, she has taught my son various strategies, or ‘reading super powers’, to help him figure out a word he may not know. She does a phenomenal job tailoring her teachings to his current needs and reading level. She works with him to set weekly reading goals, allowing him to take ownership of his learnings and to visually see his growth each week. In only a six week timeframe of working with Jen, my son’s NWEA reading scores increased over 30%, his reading fluency and comprehension improved significantly, he gained confidence in his reading abilities, and most of all he grew a new love for reading! We couldn’t be happier with his progress and with Jen‘s motivation to see him succeed!

Tiffany & Chris Radu

Jen has helped my son get the tools he needed to get through his struggles with Math and she has a way of teaching him so he can understand it.  He has become more confident in math and himself.

Rob Palmer