A Chamberlain Elementary teacher and her wonderful classroom in Goshen Indiana inspired three reluctant readers!

There is a boy who came into fifth grade as a shy, reluctant reader.  He was not particularly low, but very reluctant and afraid that the material would become too difficult for him.  Many things in his life were difficult. 

We started with the SRI and used that as our benchmark.  We had a conversation and I started him with Gary Paulsen books.  He thrived.  He loved the books, and the success that came with passing the tests.  He was most proud of the fact that he never had to take a test more than once.  He grew over 280 Lexiles in the first three quarters of the year (when I consider 100 points to be a full year’s growth), and so we were all excited.   The most important thing was that through using the programs and working hard, he learned that he could set goals and achieve more than he dreamed possible.

There was a fifth grade boy who was shy and quiet.  He had been in parochial schools and this was his first time in a public school setting.  His mother stated that she had difficulty getting him to read.  We started him with SRI and then set his target range for Scholastic Reading Counts.  The rest, as they say, was a miracle.  He became a voracious reader.  He set bigger and grander goals on almost a weekly basis.  He met and exceeded each and every goal.  He became the ‘one to catch’ in reading progress.  He stated in February that he could not believe how much he had missed out on by not reading more.  When the year ended he had passed over 166 books.  We are not talking picture books, but chapter books!  He held the record for most books passed until last year (6 years later) when a student in this room passed 177.  The funny thing was that this boy became a ‘student mentor’ in my room and he was now helping children discover a love of reading.  He is now in college, studying to be a teacher, and still keeps in touch to check up on the progress of students in our school.  He did the work, and the programs supported his efforts.

This is the story of a boy who was invisible.  He came to our school in January of 2000.  We knew very little other than he was a second language learner and he had come from a state out east.  It was evident in the first hour that something was wrong.  In the first sixty minutes he had fallen asleep twice.  He seemed to understand English, but there were connections that were missing. 

I asked him to read for me.  He stated that he did not read.  This sometimes happens when a child is bilingual and so I pulled out a book in Spanish.  I asked him to read from that book.  He repeated that he did not read.   I began to get a bit nervous.  I told him that there are times that I get nervous and reading seems harder so I asked him to just read ANY word that he knew on the page.  At this point he looked at me like I had two heads and said “I don’t read!”  This caused real panic for me.  

I had students take him on a tour of the school, because it is hard to sleep when you are walking. When he returned, the English New Language teacher was present to assess him.  Ten minutes later I heard her gasp in the hall.  She politely returned him to class, pulled me out in the hall and said “He can’t read and he does not even recognize letters.”  He had been in a school where he was on a computer for two sessions of two hours a piece and he took naps.  He was functionally illiterate. 

My class came to the rescue…we had kids who worked on letters with him, pointed to words while reading to him, and generally wrapped him tighter than I have ever witnessed in my teaching career.  They would read simple books to him and point to each word.  When they were finished they would talk about the book.  When the discussion was finished they would log on to the computer and they would read each question to him while pointing to each word.  They never used voice inflection to give away the answer and they were as happy if not happier when he passed every book he attempted.  He was reading over 250 words independently when he left fifth grade.  Did he know that he was below level?  Yes!  But, he believed himself to be a learner and he passed almost 50 books in a semester using the buddy format.  Not one other student tried to take the quizzes he did, but they all celebrated his success.

Mary Kay Longacre
Chamberlain Elementary