Specialising in teaching reading, she authored numerous publications in this area, several of them in partnership with her husband, the teacher Felipe Alliende.
She eventually became an academic of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.
In January 1990 she became part of the Ministry of Education, and was placed in charge of the program of language for 900 schools with low academic performance (P-900.)
In recognition of her efforts in propagating new teaching methods for reading throughout Latin America, a number of schools named themselves after her, one in Peru and another in Colombia.
[1] She died in Santiago on 30 March 2004, after a short and unexpected illness.