The Twelve Days of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas my tutor gave to me a language formed all willy-nilly.

On the second of Christmas my tutor gave to me two sounds of c, and a language formed all willy-nilly.

On the third day of Christmas my tutor gave to me three sounds of -ed, etc.

On the fourth day of Christmas my tutor gave to me the f,s,l, and z rule, etc.

On the fifth day of Christmas my tutor gave to me five—short—vowel—sounds etc.

On the sixth day of Christmas my tutor gave to me six syllable types, etc.

On the seventh day of Christmas my tutor gave to me seven r blends, etc.

On the eighth day of Christmas my tutor gave to me eight ways to spell long a, etc.

On the ninth day of Christmas my tutor gave to me a reminder to drop the e in ninth, etc.

On the tenth day of Christmas my tutor gave to me ten dictation toys with digraphs, etc,

On the eleventh day of Christmas my tutor gave to me the Norman Invasion's affect on English in the 11th century, etc.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my tutor gave to me twelve Wilson books, etc, and a language not quite so willy-nilly.

Losing a student

I found out Wednesday that one of my students is moving after Christmas and will not return to his school. And so next Friday, I'll say goodbye to my little guy who works for Legos. My goal is always to get the student to the point where he or she no longer needs me, and when this happens, it's cause for celebration. But this child struggles so and he has only mastered a few consonants and two short vowels. He's leaving a private school for a public school, which means a private tutor won't be allowed in to help. He will easily qualify for an IEP, but that process is so long and time-consuming, and there is no guarantee that there will be any continuity of instruction. It seems every time a child goes to a new school, they want to try all the things that didn't work in the old school. I feel sad that he is leaving, but I understand.

It's a little harder when I don't understand. Last year I had a young girl who was a total nonreader when we began. She soaked up the information I gave her with great enthusiasm and learned quickly. In a few short months she progressed at least two years. The parents seemed pleased, but then stopped the tutoring cordially but abruptly with no explanation.

Then there are the times that I am the one who ends the tutoring relationship. Occasionally it's because I am not the right tutor for the child; perhaps he needs organizational guidance and homework help rather than reading. Perhaps she needs more in-depth composition work than I do. I always explain that it's MY lack of knowledge and try to leave the parents with one or two good names that might be more appropriate. Parents pay a lot of money and I want them to get their money's worth.

There have been a few times in the past years that I ended tutoring for other reasons. Once I got caught up in an ugly custody dispute and the writing the student did for me was subpoenaed. I have stopped at least twice because the parents regularly forgot tutoring and didn't show. Once I had a parent tell me they couldn't pay me because, if they did, there might not be enough for their skiing vacation to Vail. The child that haunts me though is one from many years ago. At first glance his mom was so interested and involved. But then I realized she called every teacher every night, and I spent unpaid hours on the phone with her. If the child expressed an interest in something, the mother would sign both of them up for lessons, buy books, rent movies. This middle school child was denied the chance to have any interests of his own and I watched him withdraw more and more, from me, his friends, and his teachers. It wasn't abuse under the law so I couldn't report it. But it was abuse nonetheless, and I could no longer be a part of it.

December's rant

You know what really annoys me? People who can't keep their its straight. I'm not talking about kids writing a first draft or people scribbling a quick note. I'm talking about people with editors or public relations staff, people who should know better. And that includes teachers, by the way. Take this ad that's been flashing across my computer screen for the last several days: Dell's New Adamo PC - www.AdamoByDell.com - In a Class of It's Own. Fast, Thin & Light w/Intel Technology. If they don't do details, do I really want one of their computers? I'll stick with my Mac, thank you.

Years ago I taught a community college class made up of people who had worked all day in a factory before they drove over mountain roads to take my basic grammar class as part of earning their GED. One older woman heaved a great sigh one evening and said, "I ain't NEVER going to get my hits straight!" But she did, though I'm not sure she ever understood what I meant about ain't.

Surely if this uneducated mountain woman can get her "hits" straight, Dell can as well. Possessive pronouns don't have apostrophes. It's is a contraction for it is. It's not that hard.

. . . and MY philosophy you ask?

I was on my second day of working on the preceding article about school philosophies. I had hogged the computer and the phone rang regularly with people returning my phone calls. My elder child finally asked me to articulate my teaching philosophy since I was badgering everyone else about theirs. Luckily I was ready.

I believe that every child is precious and deserves to learn in the best possible way for him or her. The details include respect, finding joy, reducing anxiety, and feeding the right wolf (see November's post for the wolf story).

What's our philosophy?

I'm on a training subcommittee for SNAC, the Special Needs Advisory Council, for Chapel Hill/Carrboro City Schools. We spent almost two hours talking about the myriad trainings, both state or federally mandated as well as ones that dealt with methodology, and how one goes about evaluating whether they are effective or not. We were floundering. And though the other committee members did not share my certainty on the matter, I felt strongly that it's impossible to evaluate programs if one does not know what the philosophy of the school system is.

I've heard the quote that Christianity (my tradition) can be distilled into one sentence: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. All the rest is details. The details are often what gets us into trouble, what with fighting over gay marriage, ordaining women, or birth control. But I think all Christian faiths would agree with Jesus when he said this is the first law and commandment. So I wandered around the rest of the day asking questions about school philosophies, both public and private, looking for the statement that summed us up when the details are stripped away.

Because I work in so many different schools and see how they are different, this is something that is front and center to me. Two private schools, Carolina Friends School and Jordan Lake School of the Arts, have such a clearly defined philosophy that they can be summed up in a sentence or two each: For CFS, it's Quaker Values—truth, respect, peace, simplicity, nature, service. JLSA's is more informal—We believe quirky kids have much to offer the world and we create an environment where they can be accepted and successful. Both schools have longer mission statements, but this core philosophy can be found in every decision that is made, down to the kind of copy paper used, how teachers are addressed, how decisions are made, and who cleans the school. A culture is created in which all participants buy in and actively seek to further. This helps with discipline problems, teacher retention and definitely with evaluation. I will write more about these two schools in later posts.

What I found with the Lincoln Center staff I talked to is that although they may have a personal philosophy—and most of them did—they had trouble articulating what the district's philosophy was. "Well, we DO have a mission statement," was a common reaction, but most couldn't remember what it was when put on the spot. The words diversity, partnering, high expectations, and doing what's right for kids were things that were mentioned. I talked to staff at Glenwood Elementary, my daughter's school, and found a very enthusiastic philosophy, but when I asked if it were the district's or the school's, we agreed that it was probably the school's. It was when I talked to school board members that I realized that we did have a governing philosophy, and some of them could articulate it well. There is a page on the CHCCS website called "Keeping our Eye on the Ball: the Focus of CHCCS", which is is intended to clarify mission, goals, and priorities, particularly for instructional staff members. Board members use this when making budget and policy decisions and several spoke with great passion about specific parts of the philosophy that meant a lot to them.

When I spoke to parents I was somewhat surprised and disturbed. The philosophy that many have spent time working on is not trickling down to a lot of the parents. A link on a website is no substitute for the culture that is created when all participants understand and buy into a governing philosophy. The way people are greeted by a receptionist, having phone calls returned, how complaints are handled, how a child who wets his pants is treated, how easy it is to find out how one gets a struggling child tested—all these things work together to create a culture. At Glenwood, Mr. Battle, the chief custodian, is one of the main reasons that school has such a strong and caring culture. His obvious love for the children and strong work ethic make him both a role model and a hero to the kids. Glenwood's Gator Show Choir teaches the whole school about excellence. The annual three day Sound to Sea field trip to the beach builds community as well as academic skills outside the classroom. I have seen this culture maintained by three different principals, so it's more than just leadership. But not all schools have such a strong built-in culture and Glenwood's is by no means perfect.

When I talked to parents in an admittedly unscientific poll, the overwhelming perception of the district's philosophy was "Education for all, excellence for none." This included EC parents, parents of the gifted and parents of typically developing children. There were pockets of satisfaction with specific teachers or programs, but a lot of frustration about having their children's needs met. Many of my friends who can afford it have pulled their children out to homeschool, utilize charter schools, or go to private schools. And I must admit that I have often felt that all that was cared about was EOG scores and that good enough was good enough. When IDEA was first implemented and schools no longer used the discrepancy model to label a child, my 2E older daughter, who had a 60 point discrepancy on some of her subtests, lost her IEP just as she was entering middle school. When I talked to someone at Lincoln Center about this, I was told, "We no longer have to worry about potential. All we need is a C." In middle school she was faced with classes that were either too hard or too easy, accusations of laziness in the area of her disability, an abusive teacher, and an unresponsive administration. In December of her 6th grade year, at her request I pulled her to homeschool her. I don't know if my daughter will be a candidate for Harvard or not. That's her choice. But I would like her to have the option if she does choose. And I certainly would like more than mediocrity.

When comparing philosophies it is not entirely fair to compare private schools to public schools. In this case we are talking about a whole system with the further complication of federal and state "regs", EOG's, and ever-changing mandates from the legislature. Their job is much harder. But I have seen Wright School, a state-funded mental health institution and school, deal with the same regs (and more) in a positive and life-enhancing way—because they have created a culture around the 12 principles of reeducation (I wrote about Wright School in November, "Education at its best"). I, perhaps naively, believe that with the right leadership and involvement at all levels, we can develop a supportive culture that lives up to the CHCCS philosophy that sits largely unknown. We are more than the regs; we are collective guardians of one of the most precious commodities in the world, our children, and it is our job to know what we believe, create our culture and to pass it on to them.

I didn't get my pithy philosophy statement until today. When I asked my daughter's EC teacher what she perceived the district's philosophy to be, she immediately answered, "You mean, all children will learn?" That's it, and the rest is details.

Too little, too late

My second year of teaching was at a small NC mountain high school as a Title I reading teacher, working with 9th and 10th graders who were not served by the special education program. One day the senior English teacher came to me and said that she was curious about a student who was a discipline problem in her class. M. was almost always absent on test days and if there was classroom reading or board work to be done, he usually ended up being sent to the principal for acting out. I was not legally able to serve seniors (sure hope the statute of limitations is up here!), but I told her I'd take a look.

The next day during my planning period, a burly football player came to my room, furious. "I don't know what that stupid teacher is talking about, I don't have no reading problem," he shouted. "Well, let's just make her happy by taking a look and sending you back," I replied. He was not appeased but he did sit down. I pulled out a graded reading assessment and asked him to read the fifth grade level paragraph. He tried, but he couldn't. I dropped down to third grade, then second, and finally first. He stumbled over the very simple sentences in the first grade paragraph and finally stopped. We sat in silence for a moment and then he began to cry, first just tears streaming down his face and then heartrending sobs. "I've never been able to read," he finally choked out. Anything I could say seemed inadequate, but finally I told him that he must be very smart to have fooled so many people for so long. When I asked him if he wanted help, he nodded.

That began his daily trips to my room as I tried desperately to make up for twelve years of lost time. I had to tell him that I was breaking a rule by serving him and that if he ever saw a strange adult in the room, he needed to just keep walking. If my district supervisor was there, he'd walk in, quickly assess the situation, and tell me he had come to get my car keys and take my car to the shop class to change my oil. I've never had a smoother running car than I did that year.

Eventually the principal noticed how much time M. was spending in my room and called me to the office. I admitted that I was working with the boy and he proceeded to ream me out, pointing out the legal ramifications if I were caught. Then I told him why. He leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling for a moment, then looked back at me and said, "Well, I guess we'll BOTH just have to go to prison if we get caught." I loved that man!

I had neither the knowledge nor the time to really teach him how to read. I made sure he had survival vocabulary and could spell his girlfriend's name, which, unfortunately, was Debbie, a dyslexic's nightmare. He graduated and went on to get a manual labor job. I've often wondered what happened to him. Early intervention is so important; by the time a kid is in the twelfth grade, it's just too late.

Give a child the gift of reading for Christmas

Do you have someone on your gift list who already has everything they need? How about a gift in their name to help a low-income, non reading child learn to read? The Augustine Project is based in Chapel Hill, NC, but has replications in Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Fayetteville, Hickory, Greenville, SC, and Controe, TX. Volunteers give up two weeks of time to receive 70 hours of top quality training in teaching children to read. They then work with a low-income child for a minimum of 60 lessons. Schools in these areas eagerly seek AP tutors out and invite them to tutor during the school day at school. While our tutors are not Wilson trained, they are conversant with Wilson materials and use those with their students.

The Augustine Project in Chapel Hill, sponsored by The Church of the Holy Family, has just celebrated its 15th anniversary. Check out the website and see what good work is being done. This program and its replications depends on grants and donations to keep the good work going. So check it out. And perhaps you can use this wonderful project as an opportunity to cross several names off your holiday list.

Language Scavenger Hunt

Every now and then you just have to mix it up, especially with a bright student. One way to do this is to review using a language scavenger hunt. I wrote this one for F., who has reached Wilson Book 8, but still needs a lot of review. She has an especially hard time with soft c and g, as well as r-controlled syllables, so I included plenty of those. You could do this for a child on just about any level. After reading the story, F. searched for the items listed below.

I learned several things with this exercise. First, while this will be perfect for my other sixth grader when she gets to this point, it was too long and too hard for F. Second, Tracey and I need to keep reviewing (I share this child with another tutor); she easily found the r-controlled exception and trigraphs, but she couldn't find a word with blends or remember the fslz rule. And third, if a teacher hands her back a paper and tells her to proofread it, she will not be able to do that; it was very difficult for her to scan for words. Because she is on the honor roll, she did not qualify for either an IEP or a 504. Somehow we have to figure out how to get that accommodation as she advances. But I still think it was a great exercise and one I plan to use with other students in other books. One of the advantages of a one-on-one tutor is that one size doesn't have to fit all.

So, give it a try. Are you as smart as a dyslexic 6th grader? Are we collectively as smart as F.? Choose a question and answer it in the comment section. Good luck!

Once upon a time, there were three little pigs, with varying degrees of intelligence and work ethic. They slept until twelve and ate large quantities of groceries. They were not a bit unhappy with their situation. Their mother, who was, finally tired of supporting them and sent them out into the world to make their living.

They set off in different directions. Gerry, never one to exert himself, talked a farmer into giving him some corn stalks to make a simple shack. Then he set off to pick jonquils and snack on apples. Homer, also disliking excess perspiration, spent a bit more time on his home project and gathered sticks in the forest. After awhile he lost interest and went off to play jazz on his flute with a hedgehog and his fiddle. Cyrus, the compulsive one of Mrs. Pig’s offspring, read Consumer Reports and scanned the Internet until he could confidently select the best quality brick. He handpicked the Victorian gingerbread trim and planted phlox in the turned and composted garden. Then he went inside to make fudge and send evite invitations to the other piglets for a grand meal.

At this same time and place in the woods, there was a wolf who favored a bit of grilled pork and was on a mission to find some, organic and corn-fed if possible. First he went to Gerry’s. Not one to huff and puff when a simple kick would do the trick, he struck down the flimsy shanty. Its vacancy irritated him, so he went on to Homer’s. A match, he hoped, would serve two functions at once, but the aroma of crispy pork chops was absent here as well. Disgruntled, he went to Cyrus’s sturdy abode. He glanced in a window and was filled with excited anticipation when he saw all three porcine siblings at table, eating turnips, parsnips, and cherry cobbler.

But how could he get in? The wolf sat on a handy but uncomfortable stump to ponder the situation. After a short time, an evil grin crept across his ugly face. Off he went to City Hall, where he checked to see if Cyrus had gotten a construction permit. His grin was transformed into a cackle when the clerk told him there was nothing of the kind on record. The wolf scampered hungrily behind the bulldozers who arrived to knock down the illegal dwelling. After the first slam, the walls crumbled and the three pigs came storming out, face to face with the mangy wolf. Then . . .

In the story of “The Three Little Pigs”, find the following items:

1. Find a word to fit each different syllable patterns:

a. closed/ v-c-e

b. closed/ cle

c. open/ cle

d. open/ v-c-e

e. closed/ closed

f. closed/ r controlled

g. r controlled

h. v-c-e

i. r controlled/ v-c-e

j. open/ r controlled

2. Find 4 soft c words.

3. Find 4 soft g words.

4. Find a word for each of the 3 sounds of –ed.

5. Find a word with both a beginning and ending blend.

6. Find 2 of the 3 “oh u little devil” words.

7. Find one compound word.

8. Find 5 words containing different consonant digraphs.

9. Find 2 words each with a different trigraph.

10. Find a word with each of the short vowels.

11. Find a word with each of the long vowels.

12. Find 2 different prefixes meaning not and write the words they are in.

13. Find an r controlled exception.

14. Find 2 words with different spelling of /shun/.

15. Find 4 words that fit the FSLZ rule, one for each letter.

16. Find 4 words that are closed syllable exceptions (kind old words).

17. Find words with 5 different r controlled vowels.

18. Find words with 5 different suffixes.

19. Find a pair of homonyms.

20. Find 5 synonyms for house.

21. Find words containing the welded sounds an, am, ing, ong, all, alk.

22. Find 3 words where a makes the schwa sound in an unstressed syllable.

23. Finish the story.

How many words are there in English?

English is a complex language, with perhaps a quarter million words in use. This doesn't even count different forms of the word (harps, harped, harping) or different meanings of the same word (harp, a stringed instrument and harp, to nag). If you counted all of those along with words that are now obsolete, the number of English words would run closer to three quarters of a million. Even with the smaller number, English is at the top of the language list for numbers of words.

The primary reason for this is that English is a rich and complex language, pulling from many sources. Unlike the French, English-speakers have eagerly sought out the riches of other languages. A favorite quote of mine explains this colorfully:

“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words. On occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.” James Nicholl

While English is a Germanic language, English words come from many sources; 28% comes from the French, another 28% from Latin, 25% from Germanic (Old and Middle English), 4% have unknown ancestry, 3% are derived from proper names, and less than 1% comes from other languages. Although there are fewer of them, the majority of the words we use everyday come from the Germanic.

What this means is that we can have several words meaning the same thing. Instead of one root, we often have four, giving us words with shades and subtleties of meaning. Take words dealing with birth. The word birth itself comes from the Old Norse byrth and refers specifically to the bringing forth of a new individual from the body of its parent. It is perhaps the most common root in English use for birth words.

But then we have the Latin root nascor, to be born, and all the words derived from that. Forms of this word often have nasc, nat, or gna as their root. Pregnancy is an example; pre-, before, and gna, to be born. Your natal day is your birthday, and things that are innate are inborn. Nativity refers to the process or circumstance of being born, and you are a native of the place where you were born. Nature also has the same root, referring to the inborn characteristics of a person. Nascent, as in a nascent industry, means newly come into existence.

A second group of words is centered around the Greek root genos, meaning birth, race or kind. To generate means to bring into existence. A generation is a group of individuals born and living at the same time; the same word can also mean the action of producing offspring. Genesis, the first book of the Torah and Bible which tells the story of creation, means just that: the origin or coming into being of something. Even generous is related; in its genesis, it meant highborn.

A third group revolves around the Germanic root kin. Kindergarten is a class for the teaching of children or kinders. Your kin or kinsmen are your relatives, as are your kindred, which can be both a noun or an adjective. Another Germanic root is the Old English beran, to bear, to bring forth, produce. We get the word born from this root. Interestingly, ball bearings are also related; they bear the friction and is one of several words that retain the notion of moving onward by pressure.

This is one reason why it is so important to teach reading using a systematic and sequential phonetic approach; there are simply too many words to teach each word individually. There are too many different syllables to use a syllabary as Sequoyah did. If a struggling reader hopes to improve, he must be given the tools to sound out unfamiliar words. And although our language is a hodgepodge of other languages, surprisingly over 85% of English can be sounded out using those tools.

The two sides of helicopter moms

I want to pass on an excellent article about helicopter moms from my friend Alison, mother of three autistic sons. She does a great job of pointing out the positives that are often overlooked when talking about parents with this negative term. While she refers to parents of kids with autism, it is true for any parent of a special needs child. Thanks Alison!

http://autismsocietyofnc.wordpress.com/2009/12/01/warning-helicopter-moms/

The Lion's Paw

I always wonder why some books resonate so much with a child and others don't. And as I look back into my childhood at the books that shaped me, I wonder what made them so important in MY life. One such book is The Lion's Paw, by Robb White. My fourth grade teacher read this to my class in Englewood, Florida, where I spent my childhood. The book was out of print for many years, and when I searched for it as an adult, even badly worn paperback copies on Amazon and e-bay ran $85. I was surprised and delighted to find a paperback copy in a thrift store for 50 cents after many years of looking. And I was even happier when Jen Mills Barabee, a former student, emailed me to let me know the book was back in print (did I talk about it that much, Jen, that you remembered it twenty years later?). I had my new hardback copy before the week was out. And yes, it was as good as I remembered it, although somewhat dated.

Originally published in 1946, White's book follows two orphans, Nick and Penny, who escape from an orphanage on the east coast of Florida. They join up with Ben, another orphan running away from his uncle, who wants to sell his beloved sailboat. The story follows them as they cross Florida on their way to Captiva Island, looking for a shell to complete Ben's collection. He is convinced when he finds this final shell, a rare lion's paw, his father will return.

The children battle bounty hunters, the Coast Guard, alligators, and hurricanes. The book is fast-paced, has interesting characters and a dramatic and satisfying ending. As a child, I was fascinated by hearing the names of places familiar to me: Lake Okeechobee, Fort Myers, Captiva and Sanibel Islands. For years I looked fruitlessly for a lion's paw.

But I think my love of the book was due to more than a good story set in familiar places. The three kids are fully aware of the possible consequences of their running away, but, unloved and unwanted, they band together and take responsibility for their own futures. I was inspired by 12-year-old Penny's inner toughness as she rowed in the night, her hands bleeding and her tears mixing with the rain. Ben's faith and trust in his father and his desire to live up to the faith his father had in him also inspired me.

This teacher seemed to like books with resourceful, resilient children who were unwilling to sit and take what life has handed them and who understood that it would be more hard work than fun. My Side of the Mountain was another book of this type this teacher read us. I think this need for resilience and ingenuity is one reason the Harry Potter books have been so popular.

Events in my life have forced me to call upon an inner toughness that I never knew was there until I needed it. I have not rowed for hours in the rain, but I have sat in doctors' offices, in emergency rooms and in school meetings fighting for my child. There are very few of us that lead such charmed lives that we will not need resilience at some point. It is one of the greatest gifts we can give our children and books such as The Lion's Paw are a good place to start.

I have never met anyone outside of Florida who has read or even heard of this book. Do any of you Florida folks remember it? For those of you outside of Florida, were there regional books that you loved? I'd love to hear in the comment section what books inspired you as a child.

Sequoyah, creator of Cherokee's "talking leaves"

Stories about Sequoyah, also know as George Gist, differ depending upon the source. Estimates of his birth date range from 1760 to 1776. He was born in Tennessee, the son of a Cherokee woman and an English fur trader. He died in 1843 in Texas or Mexico.

Sequoyah was a silversmith who became intrigued by the white man's ability to read and write. He spent twelve years developing a written language for the Cherokee. At first he tried a hieroglyphic system, assigning a symbol to each word. When he realized there were too many words for this to work, he switched to a syllabary, assigning a symbol to 86 different syllables. He endured ridicule, even from his family. One of his wives burned his early work, considering it witchcraft. Finally he had a workable system, which he taught his daughter, who learned it easily. Slowly it began to spread as people realized the potential. It was said that a person could learn to read within two weeks, and the literacy rate among the Cherokee soon surpassed that of the white settlers.

Today, Cherokee is the second most widely used Native American language and the only one that is growing. This is almost certainly due to the fact that this form of written language preserves the spoken language so that it hasn't died out as so many Native American languages have.

Sequoyah's feat is the only known instance of an individual creating a new written system of language. To learn more about the syllabary, check out this page.

Happy Thanksgiving

I have the best job in the world and today it's one of the many things I give thanks for. It allows me flexibility, a sane schedule, a feeling of accomplishment and a purpose. So today, Thanksgiving, I give thanks for my job, my wonderful students and their parents and schools.

I'm grateful for K., my little guy who "works for Legos". His mischievous smile, cut-throat Go Fish skills, and willingness to try and try and try at something that's very hard for him make him a student I always look forward to.

I'm grateful for A., who never fails to make me laugh. He regularly slaughters me in Blink, and he has one of the most original minds I've ever come across. His divergent thinking and imagination keep me intrigued and determined he WILL become a reader who can do whatever he chooses to do.

I'm grateful for J., and his interest in words and the world, a trait that makes him tumble through the sentences we read. He's incredibly intelligent and polite, and occasionally brings his bear to be tutored as well. This kid will do great things some day.

I'm grateful for E., and the joy he greats me with each session. Because of his autism, we sing much of his lesson and I'm so pleased with the progress he is making. I am convinced that any day now, this guy will read like a pro.

I'm grateful for F. and the pleasure of ending my tutoring day with her great attitude and hard work. I share her with another tutor and F. teaches me what Tracey has taught her. She has great taste in books and has introduced me to some good ones. She has made it to Wilson Book 8 and even likes worksheets!

I'm grateful for H., who told me he'd be my first failure and who is learning to read in spite of himself. He loves creatures like Sasquatch and the Loch Ness monster, and will happily play games based on them. He's a great kid and I enjoy him thoroughly.

I'm grateful for G., my newest student, who finished Wilson Book 1 in two lessons. She has a curious mind and a desire to learn how the language works. She writes incredibly original stories and is an enthusiastic reader and learner. She is so much fun.

I'm grateful for I., a young lady who is unfailingly positive and cheerful. I love hearing, "SO, Linda, what are we going to do fun today?" She is aware of how she learns best and isn't shy about letting me in on the secret. She shows such enthusiasm for everything we do, and she is a killer Blink player.

Thanks to my tutoring partner, Tracey Powell, who is one of the most talented tutors I've ever seen and a joy to work with. Thanks to Carolina Friends School, St. Thomas More, and Jordan Lake School of the Arts for letting me tutor during the school day. Thanks to Beth, Cynthia, Leon, Nancy, Henry and all the other great teachers who work with me as partners in getting these kids to reach their potential. And thanks to the parents who have entrusted me with such joyful, precious gifts. Happy Thanksgiving!

Wazi-Wazi, part 2

Since I talked about wazi-wazi last week, I've tried to be more thoughtful about how to prevent it in my children, my students and myself. We are fast approaching a season that is especially stressful, and many of us will feel off-center and beside ourselves. How can we protect our true selves?

A prime cause of wazi-wazi is hurried transitions. The Christian Church, the tradition from which I come, has always recognized that transitional times are dangerous times, and thus many of their sacraments center around those: birth, marriage, and death primarily. Other religions and cultures also have rituals that celebrate those milestones, along with coming of age. Even losing teeth has rituals in cultures around the world. Think about the rituals you have around birthdays, adoption days, anniversaries, and holidays. Ritual gives us a way to make sense of transition. Perhaps we should look at the smaller transitions in our lives and create rituals for those. How many tantrums occur when leaving, arriving home, going to bed and getting up? A tantrum is a sign that a child is in a state of wazi-wazi. One of the principles of re-education, used at Wright School where D#2 attended, states "Ceremony and ritual give order, stability, and confidence to troubled children and adolescents, whose lives are often in considerable disarray." It's not just troubled children who need this.

For daughter #2, Sunday nights and Monday mornings are very hard. I didn't even recognize this until our upstairs neighbor mentioned it (she could hear it!). Once I saw how discombobulating this transition time was to my daughter, I created a small ritual: time alone with Mom while D#1 was at youth group, hot chocolate, and a scone. A more relaxed time talking about the week ahead has made Sunday nights much more pleasant. And since Sunday nights have gotten better, so have Monday mornings.

Giving up a crib for a "big kid bed", potty training, welcoming a new sibling, the death of a pet, starting or ending school, all of these deserve recognition in a ritualized way. This is more important for some children than others. There are kids for whom anything done more than once is a tradition. Those kids especially need the comfort of ritual. It could be as small as a song for getting in the car or putting on shoes, and as thought out and prolonged as a party for the older sibs before the new one arrives, helping to choose a name, going to doctor's appointments with mom, and a welcoming ceremony. New clothes, lunch box, backpack, and school supplies herald the beginning of school in our house, as it does in many. Many people have school ending rituals as well. I taught for seven years at a boarding school with a dress code; on the last day of classes, the kids raced to the campus pond and jumped in, coat, tie, and all. Kids will often create rituals if we don't and they aren't always helpful ones. Sunday night anxiety, having to have the TV on when falling asleep, and tantrums in the grocery store are all child-created rituals. If you see a difficult transitional time developing, beat them to it with a ritual of your own or one you both invent.

To most children, tutoring is a bit like torture, and so I ease most of mine in with at least two games of the card game Blink. It's a fast-moving game that takes about two minutes and most of my students beat me handily. We're both laughing at the end of it, and then tutoring begins. It's an enjoyable signal that it's time to get to work. For some of my kids, those on the autism spectrum especially, doing the lesson in the same order each time prevents anxiety. A Wilson lesson is highly ritualized; after the first few lessons, a child always knows what to expect. This is often a comfort when dealing with a difficult subject.

As the holidays arrive, think about the rituals you have in your family. Which ones cause stress and which ones bring comfort? It may be time to ditch the unhelpful ones. It may be time to pay attention to those you care for and figure out what they need to keep them centered and that impostor self away. And while you are at it, think about yourself as well. A parent or teacher in his own state of wazi-wazi is sure to create it in others.

In a state of wazi-wazi

It has not been a good couple days for daughter #2. Sunday nights and Monday mornings are always difficult, but this extended into Monday night and Tuesday morning. Tantrums, difficulties at school, difficulties with me and her sister, anguish . . . once again she's in a state of wazi-wazi.

I first learned about wazi-wazi from Gertud Mueller Nelson, a renown Christian educator and expert on family ritual, in her book To Dance with God:

Colin Turnbull, in his marvelous accounting of the Mbuti peoples of Zaire, passes along to us their understanding of the dangers in transition. The Mbuti see the person as being in the center of a sphere. In moving from here to there, the sphere moves too and offers protection. If movement in time or space is too sudden or vehement, we risk the danger of reaching the boundaries of the sphere too quickly, before the center has time to catch up. When this happens, a person becomes wazi-wazi, or disoriented and unpredictable. If you pierce through the safe boundaries of the sphere into the other world, you risk letting in something else which takes your place. If the Mbuti know of and guard against such violent and sudden motion—and that without the experience of automobiles or jet planes—what do we, the so-called civilized people of the world, know of our transitions in space and time? I think we are a whole society in a state of wazi-wazi, beside ourselves and possessed by impostor selves.

Many of my students suffer from wazi-wazi. One normally hyper and joyous student is taken over by a sullen and still impostor when he is faced with work that is too difficult or when he is pushed too quickly. Another suffers from a far more dramatic and long-lasting case. E., a child with autism, was speaking, reading, and writing when a new sibling joined his family. For a while he stopped all language. His sphere had been pierced in what to him was a violent and unpredictable way. But patient and loving parents and a great school are helping the real E. find his place back into his sphere.

Since I've come to understand this concept and its effect, I have tried to mitigate the jarring effect it has on my child and my students. Tonight, as she fell asleep, she held my hand and told me she loved me. My child was back and the impostor was gone, at least for awhile.

Why do students reverse letters?

When most people hear the word dyslexia, they think about reversing letters. While many dyslexics DO have letter reversals, so do many young non-dyslexic children. Why is this?

The explanation that has made the most sense to me, and the one I use when explaining to students and parents, is this. I hold up a pencil: "What is this?" "A pencil," the student says. I turn the pencil upside-down. "Now what is it?" "A pencil," he replies. I do this several times, rotating the pencil each time, and always the answer is a pencil. Then I hold a d letter card up: "What is this?" "A d," he says. I rotate the card: "Now what is it?" "A p." What worked for the pencil doesn't for the letter.

Up to now in a child's experience, an object remains the same object any way it is positioned. Letter and number symbols are the first thing a child encounter in which the positioning matters. It's a different object with each different orientation, or perhaps it's no object at all. A pencil can't be "backwards", but a letter or number can. So of course it's confusing, and most young children reverse their letters at some point. I gently correct and teach them how to "make their bed" (a way to hold their fists to make a bed and see the correct orientation of b and d). Generally this goes away with time and familiarity with the language. If it hasn't by second grade, it's time to take a second look.

Tell me a story

Stories are important things in our lives. Families are held together by stories ("remember the time we . . ." or "Dad always . . . "). It's only when we know and share people's stories that we can claim them as friends. Religions are full of stories. Islam, Christianity, and Judaism share many stories; when the stories diverge, so do the religions. Stories can heal or inspire, and if we aren't careful, hurt. Stories are powerful. And every teacher needs to be a good storyteller.

Being a good storyteller is especially important for a tutor, who works with kids in their area of greatest weakness. Words are not my students' friends, and it's up to me to make those words friendlier. One way I do that is by telling the story behind the words. Knowing their backgrounds reveals fascinating tales. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Every word is a fossil poem." That is so true; you have to have the heart of an archeologist and dig until you discover the poem within the word. A great source is the Oxford English Dictionary. In the absence of that, a good online etymology dictionary works.

A great example is the word answer. This is a killer for students to spell. WHAT is that stupid w doing in there? I find the story fascinating (okay, so I'm a word geek!). It comes from the Old English andswaru, which was formed from two words, and (against) and -swaru (to swear). While now it simply means "to reply to a question", it once had the meaning of "making a sworn statement rebutting a charge". We see a vestige of that meaning in the phrase to answer to. Once students hear that story and can see the fossil of the word swear, I find most never misspell it again.

If your student is having trouble with a particular word, look for its relatives. Is your child having trouble keeping the to/too/two group straight? Teach to first. Next, point out two's relatives: twain, twin, twice, twelve, twenty. Even though we don't pronounce the w, think of it as two's family name. You can see it in the word between, which comes from Old English bi (by) and tweon (two each). There it is in twilight, in which the meaning seems to be "half-light", although we once also spoke of the morning twilight. Twine originally meant "a double thread", while twist once meant "to spin two threads together." Do you think your student will ever forget that two is the number word? Not after all those stories! Last, too can be added with "too many o's."

So go to it. Start digging—find those fossils, find the poems, and tell those kids a story!

I didn't plan to go THERE!

Today, one of my former students found out that her daughter has juvenile diabetes. It's always devastating to get a difficult diagnosis for one's child, no matter what it is. I was expecting my biological daughter to be dyslexic; with my genes, it would be surprising if she were not. And we cope with it fairly easily, although it did mean homeschooling her once she hit middle school. My other daughter's diagnosis of mental health issues was more unsettling. I had no idea what I was facing. I have many friends who have received difficult diagnoses about their children, be it cancer, autism (sometimes in multiple children), learning disabilities, or any of the other diagnoses that can turn one's world upside-down. They have all dealt with it with grace and courage. After the initial shock, they have rolled up their sleeves and gotten to work. Tiger moms (and dads) and activists rise from the ashes of dreams of an untroubled future. They have a new jargon, a new routine, and as one dad of a medically fragile child said to me last night, "It's old hat now." That doesn't mean it's always fun, but there is grace.

I've thought all morning about what to say to T. in response to her daughter's diagnosis. I've always been irritated by the well-meant words that God will never give you more than you can handle. First, I don't think God makes children sick. And second, you only have to watch the news to see that people often have more than they can handle. But I know that T. is a strong person, and I'm reminded of a story I heard at a dyslexia conference.

Imagine your delight. You are being transferred to the Rivera. All your life you have wanted to live in the south of France, and now you have your chance. In the depths of winter you will be eating wonderful French food and basking on the beaches. You've studied French for a long time in preparation; you have bought clothes appropriate to the climate. You climb on the plane and off you go.

The plane lands and you look out the window. Something is wrong. The landscape is blanketed with snow and, though it's just 5:00 pm, it's pitch dark outside. As you disembark from the plane, you are hit with an icy blast. You stand there in shock and your cell phone rings. There has been a change of plans and your new assignment is Norway.

You spend the next 24 hours in tears of rage and despair. It's not fair! Why did this happen to you? You don't have the right clothes. You don't speak the language. There are only five hours of daylight a day and it's freezing. The food is strange and you don't like it. You never had the slightest desire to go to Norway!! You go through the motions of finding a place to live, buying new clothes, starting your new job. Everything is harder because of the language barrier, the deep snow, the dark and the cold. Everything is a struggle and you are consumed with rage with the unfairness of it all.

Life goes on and you notice the days are getting longer. As spring comes, you start to look around. Oslo has many beautiful buildings that you never noticed before. The people are friendly and patient with your lack of Norwegian. As you sample more of the local cuisine, it loses its strangeness, and some of it is downright good. Summer comes and you visit the breathtaking fjords and enjoy the long hours of daylight and the temperate climate. You make friends and one day you realize you're okay with being in Norway. It's not where you wanted or planned to go, and you still feel a pang for what you are missing. But it's where you are and that can't be changed. You feel the anger dissipating. You know the winter and all its difficulties will come again, but you will enjoy the summer while it's here and cope with the winter when it comes. This is where you are.

So T., all I can tell you is that I'll pray for Abbey and hope for a cure. I hope your doctors are nice and knowledgeable. I hope you have a family and community that supports you. I can promise you that grace will come.

How long will this take?

Parents often ask how long tutoring will need to continue. It's difficult to know that. Three former students serve as examples of why it's hard to tell.

B.'s mother called me when B. was in kindergarten. An obviously bright child, most of her classmates were reading. She wasn't, and this was causing B. a lot of distress. The mother was not overly concerned that she wasn't reading; after all, this WAS kindergarten. But she was concerned about the child's anxiety over it. In my initial assessment, B. knew all her sounds, even x, but she couldn't spell or read a single word. As we began our first lesson, I realized although she knew the sounds, she didn't know why she knew them and what relationship they had to reading. Once I explained that we put letters together to make words, she excitedly began to spell cat and fat and bat. I helped her memorize sight words that couldn't be sounded out and by the second lesson she was writing sentences. About two months later we started on The Boxcar Children and she got hooked on the series. We'd start a book and she'd finish it before I'd return. I worked with her about a year and through her school career, she'd check in about once a year, usually with a grammar question. She's now a financial analyst with a masters degree from UNC.

C., an equally bright first grader, was a whiz in math but had great difficulties with reading and spelling. He had already began to label himself as dumb and was shy and withdrawn. It took six months before he was able to blend the letters in a three letter word. His mother had me tutor him every summer as well as the school year. I bribed him with M & M's to get him to read a simple sentence and we tried every trick I knew. Nothing in the written realm came easily to him.

He was in fifth grade when the Harry Potter craze hit, and all his friends were reading it. C. brought me his copy of the book and asked if we could read that. I knew that his skills were far too low for this book, but I took a deep breath and we started. He'd read a page with agonizingly slowness and a lot of help, and then I'd read two pages. In an hour, we'd get through maybe six pages.

One Monday he came in and said, "You're going to be really mad at me." "Yeah?" I said. "Why?" "I read ahead 116 pages," he answered and proceeded to tell me what I'd missed. "Oh, yeah, I"m furious," I replied. He grinned. Somehow that weekend, all the things we'd worked on for five years came together and made sense. I worked with him for five more years, continuing the reading but concentrating on the writing assignments that became increasingly more complex. He is now an engineering student at Purdue.

D. came to me in the 7th grade, with a diagnosis of autism and dyslexia. The school system had told his mother that he didn't have the cognitive ability to learn to read, but a savvy psychologist had prescribed a phonetic approach. When I started, he had to think every time he spelled his name. We marched through Wilson books 1, 2, 3, and 4, and his mother reported he was looking up things on Wikopedia at home. We began Mary Pope Osborne's three book series The Odyssey, which he loved. After three years, the school system tested him at 12th grade reading level and my work with him was through. His spelling still lags behind his reading and he uses an Alpha-Smart for his classwork. He has an A average in 10th grade English.

So when a parent asks me how long it will take, I can never answer that. Every child is different, and all I can say is that we'll know when we get there.

Which wolf?

Pete, D#2's unit coordinator at Wright School, realized I was a person who loved and needed stories, and at particularly low points in our time there would tell me a new one. Here is the most healing story he told me, one that guides my day-to-day interactions with my students, my children, and others I come into contact with:

An old Navajo grandfather was walking with his grandson. He looked down at the boy and said, "Son, inside you and every human there are two wolves. One is a good wolf and one is an evil wolf, and they are fighting to the death." They continued walking in silence until the boy cried, "But Grandfather, which wolf wins?" The grandfather replied simply, "the wolf you feed."

Here's hoping that every child has people in her life who feed the good wolf.

Learned Helplessness

One of my favorite quotes, and I can't remember or find who said it, is that to best educate a child, you should give him a book and get out of the way. I have found that to be great advice with Daughter #1, who is homeschooled. Schools are not set up for gifted dyslexics, and I finally stopped fighting and pulled her out. She neither wants nor requires much of my help. She takes a couple of enrichment classes, uses an algebra text with DVD lectures if she needs it, learns history through novels, and is reading lots of short stories. She also spends a lot of time investigating her interests of the moment: classic rock, photography, forensic psychiatry, sewing, harmonica, drama. She is truly an independent learner.

It's harder with D#2, who struggles with anxiety and has also missed a lot of school over the years. I find myself sitting with her as she does her homework, helping her through math problems that have her extremely frustrated. Part of it is due to an excessively wordy math text which makes things much more complicated than they need to be. But this week, her class is joining with other classes across with country in a math challenge, where the student does on-line math problems and earns points for her class for correct answers to problems that get progressively more difficult. There is very little explanation, but the student has the chance to try again on similar problems after being told the correct answer. Tonight, she sat for two hours doing math by herself. Occasionally she'd ask for help, but after I explained it once, she'd send me off, saying. "I can do it now." I had to bribe her with pie to get her to quit.

What an empowering experience for a child who is "bad at math"! It is so easy for those of us with special needs kids to push them into the trap of learned helplessness, with the very best intentions of course. Letting a child make his own mistakes and learn from them, letting him know you consider him a capable learner, and setting up situations where he can succeed on his own are incredible gifts to a child. Far too often we—teachers, tutors, and parents—rescue a child and end up doing it for him. As a teacher, I often saw homework, projects, and papers clearly done by the parents. That tells the student that he is not capable of doing quality work. Allowing mistakes and having reasonable expectations make a child feel he is able to do what is asked of him.

I am very grateful to D#2's teachers for setting my child up for success with this math program. She can't wait to get up and start in on math tomorrow. It also reminds me that I need to help her make homework more HER job and less OUR job whenever possible. She will always need more of my help than D#1 in academics, but her pride in her math performance tonight makes me think she needs less than she is getting.

SNAC: Special Needs Advisory Council

This morning I attended the monthly meeting of SNAC, the Special Needs Advisory Council of Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools. I represent Glenwood Elementary School, where my youngest daughter attends. SNAC is a group of parents, district staff, and community professionals working to improve the CHCCS Exceptional Children's program. Our purpose is to influence district policy on EC issues. Any parent of a child who has (or recently had) an IEP or a 504 plan, or is medically fragile, is welcome to find a place to contribute.

It amazes me that so many parents, all with special needs children and many in crisis, find the time and energy to attend a monthly 7:45 am meeting as well as subcommittee meetings. And these are not parents complaining about individual children's cases; this is advocating for ALL EC children in the district. I joined SNAC in its earlier stages, when it was angry parents on one side of the room and defensive staff on the other. Meetings were often hostile. Gradually it became less of an "us and them" group as we all realized we wanted the same things for our kids. I went off SNAC for two years and returned this year. It is a joy to see how it has evolved into a group of knowledgeable parents and professionals working together to truly influence district policy. As a parent who has had EC children in this district for ten years and as a tutor who has worked with many more, I can truly say that this group has improved education for all exceptional children.

And kudos to Shell Brownstein, one of our own, who was just overwhelmingly elected to the CHCCS school board. Shell saw that twice exceptional children (kids who are both gifted and dyslexic) were often underserved because of identification formulas and lack of understanding that a child could fall into both categories. She used SNAC to shepherd through some major changes that help 2E children before they get discouraged.

These folks are all heroes. Sometimes quiet, sometimes loud, often exhausted, they are changing a piece of the world.

I'm stuck

The advantage a tutor has over a teacher is that she can tailor a lesson to a specific child. Sometimes that's as easy as spending a little extra time on something or playing a learning game he loves. Last year I had a child with autism who became obsessed with manhole covers. With my handy Pampered Chef can opener (which leaves no sharp edges), I gathered a bunch of can lids, wrote words on the "manhole covers", and he read them happily.

Sometimes a kid gets really stuck on something that is very important and I want to make sure he has the concept before we go on. My student A. is having trouble with consonant blends. Because they are ubiquitous, it's important to have a good grasp of them. We've done workbook pages, played Go Fish and other games with them, dictated, used the magnet board . . . I've pulled everything I have out of my bag of tricks. He's getting better, but he isn't consistent and he certainly hasn't over-learned them. For instance, today he spelled spin sinp. It's almost as if he sees the word as a whole and misses the parts. And to make it worse, he refuses to tap the sounds out; that's just too weird for him. I'd love to find a substitute for tapping that he would do.

This guy has one strength that I very seldom see in my students. He loves to put things in alphabetical order and he's good at it, even when he has to go to the third or fourth letter. He also loves patterns. How can I use these strengths to help him with his weaknesses? One thing I will try next session is to write words on index cards, perhaps all with s blends, have him alphabetize them and then read them. To alphabetize he must first look at the letters in order. And then I'll try . . . hmm. I must admit I'm stuck. Is there a way to use his love of patterns to help him overcome this block? He likes sorting games, and that helped him master -ng and -nk.

So, master tutors, teachers, and generally creative thinkers: what would you do? I'd love to hear your best ideas. Helping a child learn in the way she learns best is my favorite part of tutoring. I'm just stuck, sort of like A. is. And it's my job to get us both unstuck.

You must be mistaken!

How many mistakes did you make today? I made quite a few. I forgot to take the books back to the library (fines building up!), I turned a street too early, I threw away something I needed, I left my dayplanner on the floor and the cat peed on it. And those are the ones I'll admit to. So where did we get the idea that our students' work needs to be perfect? When did we give them the idea that we expect perfection from them? Was it when we made a child copy a paper over numerous times until she "got it right"? Was it when a B wasn't good enough? Was it when we lowered the grade on a paper by a letter grade for every mistake in it? Was it when we corrected him in front of the whole class or called on him to read out loud? No wonder so many children suffer from anxiety!

I'll ask a child to tell me about an event and his story will be full of detail and rich, descriptive vocabulary. Then I'll ask him to write it down. "How many sentences?" he groans. And the product is a sometimes perfectly written, incredibly boring narrative with three or four word sentences, full of easy words he is sure he can spell. Wilson Anderson calls this "dumbing down". It takes a long time before I can convince him that I'd rather have a vibrant story full of errors than a snore-inducing paragraph with perfect spelling. I tell him about Oriental carpet makers who always include one mistake in their carpets because only God is perfect, and to produce a perfect carpet would be trying to be like God. I encourage him to make sure there is always at least one mistake for the same reason. I'll have him use Anderson's technique of underlining words he thinks are wrong and continuing on. And on every student's notebook is a sticker that says, "Every mistake is another opportunity to learn." As I pointed out an error to a child, she said, "I know, there's one of those opportunities!"

Seeing the mistakes a child makes is a large part of diagnostic teaching. I may think she knows those consonant digraphs, but if she writes about a mother hen and her chiks, I know we need to do more work on -ck. It's a lot easier to spell a word in isolation than it is when you are thinking of content. And just because I encourage mistakes, it doesn't mean we don't correct them. But we may not correct all of them at one time. Also, while invented spelling is great for kindergartners, we move children away from that by teaching the rules and structure of the language. Making the same mistake continuously hinders our ability to move on and means I need to find a different way to teach whatever is causing the problem. We're always moving toward improvement, but not perfection.

Thomas Edison had many failures before inventing the things he did. He did not see this as a problem: "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." Henry Ford said, "Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necessary to a worthwhile achievement." "If you can't make a mistake," Marva Collins teaches, "you can't make anything." But my favorite is this: "The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one." (Elbert Hubbard) We have so many opportunities to learn and try new things. Don't let the fear of mistakes keep us and our students from trying them.

Education at its best

I have two wonderful daughters, and my first was an easy child, leading me to the spurious belief that my superior parenting was responsible for her charming and easygoing personality. Then came daughter #2, who knocked me right off my high horse. I eventually discovered that she has mental health issues, primarily anxiety, ADHD, and executive function deficits. With severe anxiety and little impulse control, this normally sweet child can do the fight or flight reaction equally well. She was expelled from her first daycare at age two and regularly ended up in school situations that increased her anxiety and aggressive behavior. Mental health support for children is sketchy at best, and finally I made the decision to send her to Wright School. Sending my child to a state-run, residential mental health treatment center was one of the hardest decisions I have made in my life. It was also one of the best.

Wright School (www.wrightschool.org) is in Durham, NC, and works with 24 (at a time) of the state's most violent and troubled children, ages 6-12, for six to eight months. They go home every weekend to practice what they have learned during the week. The school is based on the principles of reeducation and their long-term success with a difficult demographic is nothing less than phenomenal. They serve about 55 kids a year at a low cost to the state and no cost to the parent, and they are a national model for a program that works. So how do they do it? Here is MY theory:

1) The staff is, across the board and without exception, both competent and passionate about their work. There are not only guiding principles, but a deep-rooted culture around those principles. For instance, they don't yell at children. Never. And they don't make those children or their parents feel like failures.

2) Following the principles of reeducation, the staff doesn't assume something is wrong with the child. The presumption is that the ecology of the child's environment is out of balance, and all elements have to change. I had to change, daughter #1 had to change, the structure of day to day living had to change, and the school had to change, all along with D#2. We had a parent-teacher liaison who worked with me in a very pragmatic way. I had SO much to learn and adjust, and she was there to help me do it. What worked with D#1 didn't with this child and I had to find new ways to parent. We also had a unit coordinator who inspired me by the stories he told me (which you will hear at some point) and who infused me with hope.

3) Structure and clear expectations are key. She got constant feedback about her behavior and constant praise for the things she did well. We continue to do these things at home. We now have schedules and posted expectations.

4) All kinds of competencies were addressed: tying shoes, table manners, hygiene, social skills, and academics. As a child became more confident in these areas, she became less anxious about her performance. She knew what was expected of her.

5) They address a troubled child's academic problems directly. I'll quote director Debbie Simmers on this:

Children in a clinical population, like those at Wright School, often have co-occurring learning and language delays and/or disorders, as well as significant deficits with processing speed and/or working memory. A thorough academic assessment for children with mental health needs can illuminate learning issues that suggest to trained educators needed positive academic supports, in addition to positive behavioral supports. Individual and small group remedial instruction that accommodates and supports learning needs with direct instruction and a reinforcement system that initially rewards effort, in addition to results, is an empowering formula to increase learner engagement. A pattern of celebrated success often brings the child sufficient confidence to use the strategies s/he has learned to take academic risks that they formerly refused. Successfully using a strategy to independently sound out an unknown word lights up a child's face with hope for the future!

Wright School uses the Wilson Reading System to teach reading and Saxon Math for the spiral drill that brings math proficiency. They follow the NC Standard Course of Study but in a way that is accessible for learners with special needs.

Many of the things done at Wright School are transferable to the home and other school settings. In fact, staff will do trainings for teachers and other groups. I wish that all children could have the chance to be taught by teachers who are this good.

D#2 graduated from Wright School in May, 2009. She is mainstreamed in our districted public school; it's the first time in three years she has not been in a self-contained classroom. She regularly points out kids who could be helped by Wright School, and she often asks to go back to visit the staff. Life is not perfect, but we all have strategies to deal with our difficulties. We have hope once again.

One of my heroes

One of the most important influences on me as a teacher is educator Marva Collins, who ran the Westside Preparatory School in Chicago from 1975 to 2008. She was driven to start this school because of the poor quality education that her children and other impoverished black children were receiving. Her teachers used a direct Socratic method and she believed every child could read if they were taught phonics and the structure of the language. Generally, all her students, even those labeled developmentally disabled, learning disabled, and ineducable, were reading by Christmas. Her book, Marva Collins' Way, was and is a great source of inspiration and challenge to me. She now does educational seminars, and more about her can be found on www.MarvaCollins.com. I've always thought she should be the Secretary of Education.

Two of her quotes particularly hit home with me:

—"There is a brilliant child locked inside every student."

—"Don't try to fix the students, fix ourselves first. The good teacher makes the poor student good and the good student superior. When our students fail, we, as teachers, too, have failed."

I can help you with that . . . .

Several years ago I visited a cemetery in one of the mountain counties. There, carved on a nearby gravestone, was the epitaph, "She's with the angles". My thoughts were certainly not befitting of the occasion: congruent, acute or obtuse? Or is she a circle that somehow went to the wrong place?

I was reminded of this when I went to a school system office this week. I have been doing contract work for a nearby school system for the last three years, and they recently had to cancel my contract due to lack of funds. I went to the district office to fill out some paperwork, and they had one of those security systems where you sign in via computer. They take a most unflattering picture of you, determine where you are going, scan your driver's license, and then issue you a badge. When I got to the point of telling the computer my destination, I saw that one of my choices was the Cirriculum Department. I almost lost it. I wanted to tell them, "You know, you might want to keep me on. I can help you with that."

So, just in case anyone from that school system is reading, here's the rule: when c is followed by e, i, or y, it generally says /s/: circus, century, cyanide. When g is followed by e, i, or y, it usually says /j/: gentle, gist, gym. It's called the soft sound. When they are followed by a consonant or a, o, u, the c and g will have the hard sound: /k/ and /g/. There are a few exceptions, but it's a pretty safe rule in general.

And maybe, just maybe, systematic, phonetic spelling instruction needs to be part of your curriculum.

Savvy, my new favorite book

What do you do when you have a really bright kid with a low reading level who hates to read? A good book is often the answer, and I like to spend part of every session reading aloud. Generally I have the student read a page and then I'll read one, alternating for the allotted time. This makes it less onerous for the student, and it lets me model fluent and expressive reading. But finding the right book is key.

I was talking about this with my friend Summer when she jumped up from the table, ran upstairs, and returned with the book Savvy by Ingrid Law. Published in 2008, the book is a Newbery Honor Book and spent some time on the New York Times Best Seller List. Savvy is written for a middle school audience, but it's a compelling read for older readers too.

Mibs Beaumont anxiously awaits her thirteenth birthday when she will receive her savvy, a special ability that arrives to those in her family at their thirteenth birthday party. Brother Rocket is electrical, brother Fish causes hurricanes, Grandpa creates new places, and Momma does everything perfectly. Only their Poppa is without a savvy, and the two younger siblings have not received theirs yet. Adolescence is spent learning how to control one's savvy, which can have devastating consequences if unharnessed. Mibs dreams of what hers might be, though Rocket warns her that boys get all the really good ones.

But two days before her birthday, Poppa is in a terrible wreck and taken to the hospital several towns away, where he remains in a coma. Momma and Rocket go to him, Rocket blowing transformers and street lights all the way down the highway. Mibs is convinced that if she could get to him, her savvy will be the one that will wake him up. But her plan goes array and she ends up traveling in the wrong direction with two of her brothers, the preacher's kids, a pink Bible salesman, and a down-on-her-luck waitress, all with stories, difficulties, and gifts of their own. When Mibs finally gets to her father, she finds that her savvy is not what she hoped it would be, and the family gathers around Poppa's hospital bed to say goodbye.

The book ends well, but not conventionally. There is a sincere sense of acceptance for those who are different and an understanding that we all have exceptional gifts, whether they are savvies or not. I especially liked the fact that the teenage years are portrayed as scary, difficult and wonderful, with gifts that require learning self-control in order to become sources of joy rather than destruction. The author uses the language in a rich, rollicking way that is fun to read aloud.

I'm reading this with two of my sixth grade girls. It would also be great for a book discussion group. I have a feeling I'll be needing to buy Summer a new copy.

Brain Training Dancer

You may wonder why there is a spinning woman on my blog. This image ostensibly tests whether you use your right brain hemisphere or your left brain hemisphere more. When I got this in an email, the caption said, "Clockwise dance belongs to right hemisphere users. Counterclockwise belongs to left hemisphere users. Try to reverse dancer rotation for training the other part of the brain."

Is this true? I have no idea. I am, however, fascinated with brain research and what it tells us about learning. One person's explanation can be found at http://thebraintrainingblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/right-brain-vs-left-brain.html

And I have no clue whether he knows what he's talking about or not. But it's fun to think about. And it's fun to try to make her switch directions.

You are not the one who failed

My favorite students are those who are failures. They come to me with no hope left. No matter what's been tried—Reading Recovery, resource help, extra teacher time, learning centers—they still aren't reading and they have accepted the fact that it's their fault. Here they are again, going through reading assessments that spotlight their weaknesses, with another stranger who will eventually give up. No wonder they have bad attitudes.

The first thing I tell a new student after I assess her is that I know she can learn to read. It's just that no one has taught her yet. "It's not your fault that you learn differently," I say. "I WILL teach you to read. And if I can't, it's MY fault, not yours, and I will help your parents find someone who can. But I don't plan to fail and I will teach you." I love the look of puzzled surprise I get after I say that. They may not believe me, but they are intrigued. No one has ever said it's not their fault, and whether they can verbalize it or not, they believe it is.

I want my lessons to always feel a little too easy for a student like this, and I tell them so. I compare learning to read to building a house. "When you build a house, where do you start?" I ask. The bottom, they reply. "And if there are holes in the bottom, what happens to the house you are building?" It falls. "There are holes in the foundation of your house. We are going WAY back to fix those holes and then we will keep going up. And with every brick, you will be a better reader."

And so we go back to short a and a few consonants like s, f, r, and m that blend easily into that a, along with t and p to put at the end. Soon they are reading sat and fat and maybe even map. And then I can say, "Now you can read. The rest is just learning more sounds." That's usually enough to get them back for a second session.

Sometimes a student will ask, "Why didn't my teacher teach me?" I always emphasize that it's not the teacher's fault either; no one taught him how to teach students like this. And until we change how the universities teach reading methodology, there will continue to be failures.

I love the failures. But I wait for the day when there aren't any because the schools are able to hire teachers who can teach children who learn in all different kinds of ways. Though there will always be kids who need one-on-one help, we can significantly reduce that number with proper teacher training. It's time to look at who the real failures are and address that problem. There are holes in the foundation of our teacher training programs. We need to go back to the bottom and fix them.

I may love the failures, but they don't love failing. And they are not really the ones who are failing.

What's a Renegade Teacher?

I am a reading tutor out of penitence. I have a BA in English and was certified in Reading, but in all my coursework I was never taught how to actually teach reading. I was taught how to test a child to see how poorly he read, how to arrange my class so he'd want to read, how to determine the reading level of a text, how to teach finding the main idea in a passage, but never the mechanics and structure of the language and how one imparts that. The thinking seemed to be that if I did all these things, my students would just pick literacy up like a dropped item on the floor. Learning to read was an act of will. And if they didn't learn, well, maybe they just weren't trying hard enough or their parents weren't sufficiently involved.

Whole word was the method I was taught, with an emphasis on looking at the pictures and using context clues to guess at words. Phonics? The only lesson I remember about that was when the reading professor wrote the word ghoti on the board. "If phonics worked," he said, "that would say 'fish'." We stared blankly. The punch line came triumphantly: "gh as in rough, o as in women, and ti as in nation. Phonics doesn't work."

And so in 1977 I became a Title I reading teaching for 9th and 10th graders in a North Carolina mountain high school. I went in with high aspirations and a desire to change the lives of these kids. My students never learned to read. I worked hard, I arranged the room just so, I exposed them to the very best literature I could find, but these kids just didn't learn to read. And no one, not their parents, not the administration, not the Title I supervisor, no one was outraged or even surprised by this.

After four years of that job, I took a position teaching English at a private Episcopal boarding school in the foothills of North Carolina. This school had a language therapy program for dyslexic students. I didn't pay too much attention to it; two very nice ladies took students and worked with them on their reading and helped them with the papers I assigned. Dr. Lucia Karnes was the school psychologist and she ran a six week camp for dyslexics at the school during the summer break. She hired me to teach composition at camp and asked me to provide language therapy for one student. I underwent her three day training with such skepticism I could hardly stay in the room. She used the Orton-Gillingham method, indeed had trained with Mrs. Orton, and it was heavy on the phonics. And I knew phonics didn't work.

The student I was assigned was bright, but was having difficulty in reading and spelling. I dutifully if unenthusiastically went through her program with this boy. When she did post testing with him at the end of the six weeks, he had gained two years in his reading and spelling.

My world was rocked. I was stunned, but most of all I was furious. If kids could be taught to read, why had no one taught me how to do it? What had I done—or not done—to all those kids who had come to me full of hope? I grieved for all the students I had failed, but there was no way to put things right for them. A famous Mother Jones quote says, "Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living." And that's what I determined to do.

When I moved to Chapel Hill and first started tutoring, all I had was Mrs. Orton's little yellow book, A Guide to Teaching Phonics. But I devoured it and anything else I could find and soon became a proficient reading tutor with successes of my own. I decided I would be a renegade teacher.

The dictionary defines renegade as "one who rejects a religion, cause, allegiance, or group for another; a deserter; an outlaw; a rebel." And that's me. I rebel against bad teaching and bad methodology. I no longer owe allegiance to the instruction I received that did such a disservice to so many children. I found a new cause. I am a renegade teacher. Watch out!