A  FEW  OTHER  EXPERIENCES

on the effectiveness of our reading system

One year I had a Kinder/First combination.  The kinders had received a strong preschool experience and already knew their letter sounds. The first graders were quite low and seemed to have a wide variety of learning disabilities.  After teaching them all of the rules in my book, most of the kinders and some first graders were able to read the letters the office sent home to   parents.                                              

Usually, I passed out the letters to parents as the students were going out the door; but this day, I passed them out a few minutes early and told them to go sit down and try to read them.  In a few minutes, they were hopping up and down on the rug reading various parts, some telling me that Officer Jones was coming to the Multipurpose Room to talk to parents about “Just Say No to Drugs.”

I was very surprised because although I knew they’d be able to sound out many of the words, I had no idea they would be able to get so many, especially the longer ones, and rules that we had not practiced as much, such  as soft c and ay=a.  I realized that day just how much children love the challenge of figuring things out for themselves. 

In addition, they were so comfortable with their ability to sound words out and use invented spelling that they would sometimes cover the front and backsides of second-grade paper in their morning writing warm-ups before I had finished taking roll and doing other morning business. 

Another year, at a school in South Central Los Angeles, one mother sat with me on a bench after school.  It was cold and windy, but she listened for 20 minutes as I explained to her what to do at home to help her struggling child.  She went right to work and inadvertently taught her preschooler to read while she tutored the older sister.  She told me that the younger child would lie on her lap during these sessions and just picked it up!  When her preschooler was to go to Kinder, the mother asked the principal to put her in my first-grade class.  The girl was placed in my class, but even so, she was still well over a year ahead of the rest of the students.  The mother told me that the girls’ cousins had “Hooked on Phonics” but that her children “flew way past their cousins a long time ago.”

At the same school, the following year, I invited third-grade teachers to send their nonreaders to me in the morning to “help” my first graders.  Actually, the plan was that they would be learning to read and write themselves.  Their teachers reported good progress after a month, especially with confidence and enthusiasm in sounding words out.

I also shared my system with the special education teacher next door, who announced at a grade-level meeting that she had started her class on my syllable method the first day of school and a month later, they were beginning to read and write.

At another school, the special education teacher asked to mainstream, or include, one of her students into my first-grade class.  She told me not to bother teaching her to read, as she’d tried for a year, but the child was not able to learn.  She just wanted her to be around some more normal-acting children.  I agreed, but did include her in our reading groups and within a short time, she was reading slowly.  By the end of the year, she was up with my class, much to the surprise of everyone.  Her mother was overjoyed.

                                Parents and Teachers are Gifted and Talented Too!

They have to be in order to raise or supervise children. However, what if a child is failing at something?  There are always answers, but we need faith, inspiration and intuition to arrive at solutions.

For instance, one year my principal asked me to take the second-graders who had failed the year before.  There was a new law in our state that a child had to repeat second grade if he had failed it.  Welcoming any new challenge, I told him I would.  But by recess of that following school year, I marched straight to the office and told him that I’d never seen anything like this class before, and I felt I just couldn’t do it.  It was too much like special ed.  This group was so low, distractible, whining, complaining, tattling, fussing, and very tired looking, but he encouraged me to stick with them, and reluctantly, I agreed.

One of the conditions for the class was that the parents had to bring their children in and pick them up in order to communicate with the teacher if necessary.  I figured that I really needed their cooperation if I was going to help these children catch up.  So I made up a list of everything they needed to do on their end.  (See Table of Contents for Seven Things Parents Can Do).  The main things were: no junk food, including chips, soda, and anything that would spoil their appetite; little or no television, and above all no scary movies, which give nightmares and interrupt their sleep; eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, and more responsibilities around the house, to build their sense of cooperation in the family. 

All of those parents complained bitterly about my requirements; but I told them that if they’d just try it for one week they’d see a big change.  When they told me about how hard it was to put these plans into action, I just kept explaining to them, ‘You are the directors and producers of your own family show, and you don’t want the kids changing channels on you!  The ratings are all up to you."  Slowly they began nodding as they grasped the ideas and thought on how to execute the plan.  I’m sure they talked out in the halls and over the back fence, comparing notes, and except for a few, who continued to think that I was too unreasonable, they got the job done.  I’m proud of them and their tremendous effort.  By March, those students could sit and read, answering comprehension questions from the time they came in until lunch.  Moreover, they loved it.  You could see the pride and confidence in their faces.  Furthermore, the parents saw that they did have the power to make needed changes.  They felt inspired by small signs of progress, and I’m sure most of them probably prayed.      

But what about the few parents who never stopped complaining about my requirements?  Their children didn’t make as much progress.