Thread: Just saying "Hi"

Hi Grace,

Out of curiosity, what do you plan to do to stay active in the field? Will you become a teacher/volunteer who works with reading ... or will you be a sub?

I've applied for my old job back in Saudi Arabia but if that doesn't work out, I'm looking for a job up north. Could you tell me what the job market is like in your neck of the woods?

And NO ... I do not want to be a 1st grade teacher. (GRIN)

Regards,

David

P.S. The site administrator is looking for suggestions about new forums. You may want to ask her about a reading forum. I believe her request for input is listed under "other subject related fields." If it's not there then it'll be in the teachers' lounge.

David, I continue to write materials and do workshop presentations in the reading/spelling field. One goal is to change the way schools look at spelling instruction. Old habits are hard to break but one needs to continue to chip away. I also volunteer one night a week as an assistant in and ESL classroom. I work with beginning students, mostly Hispanic. Their teacher welcomes my knowledge of articulation and we have a lot of fun contorting lips, tongue, etc. to teach the students to create sounds foreign to their everyday language -- we WILL learn to say \v\ rather than \b\ and \th\ rather than \f\ so \s\ (third, fird, sird). I'm also looking at working with Christian Education in my church, something I avoided during all my years of public school teaching simply because there was not time left in my schedule.

As to jobs in this area, I think most of the suburban areas still have waiting lists of people wanting to get hired but Chicago schools are desperate for teachers of quality -- typical inner city stuff, some very good and some very needy. We're quite a ways out northwest of the city. It wouldn't hurt to get yourself listed in the various counties. Check the website for the Illinois State Board of Education. I think they list every school district in the state (I didn't precheck this for you). If they have email contact with the schools that would be a great place to submit your electronic dossier. What grade level do you prefer. I'd be happy to write a recommendation if it's anywhere in this area. Grace

"Not first grade! Not first grade! Not first grade!" (David of Houston popped open one eye and reread Grace's post).

"What grade(s) am I interested in?" "Not first grade!" (Sorry - that was a knee jerk reaction).

Most of my experience has been with 3rd or 4th. I'm also looking for a job in a small town. Houston is the 4th largest city in the United States and I didn't realize how much I'd miss rural Oregon until I got here.

The rural country road that passed through the center of town only had four lanes - two going each way and three stoplights. In "rush hour" traffic, you could get across town in five minutes. In marked contrast, Houston has HUGE expressways with over ramps, under ramps, and snarling grid lock traffic complete with beeping cars and waving fists.

It's too much for me.

I'm a small town boy at heart.

I must admit that I LIKE having access to all of the stores, super-supermarkets, malls, and theaters. The restaurants are also fabulous ... but I'd just as soon as live a few hours outside of a city so I could drive in on the weekends to do my shopping.

If you have any suggestions regarding which counties I could look at, I'd appreciate your advice.

In the meanwhile, I have reapplied to go back to work in Saudi Arabia. I've also got job applications out for a college in Rhode Island, a rural school in Nevada, and a Native American reservation in Wisconsin.

Have teaching certificate - will travel ... come the end of the year, I'll be ready to roll.

Now if I only had a destination ....

(GRIN)

David

Hi, Grace!

I'm a new soon-to-be-elementary school teacher. I was interested in what you said about changing the way spelling is taught. What are the innovations you're trying to spread?

Jeanne, schools need to look at spelling instruction within the developmental framework. Traditional spelling instruction relies on lists of high-frequency words, many of which children already know how to spell. I think we need to approach instruction in two ways.

The first is to develop individualized spelling programs. For example, I've pulled together a list of 140 high-frequency words gleaned from several lists. One can easily expand this list to include words offered in grade level spelling texts. Teachers should learn to sort these words into levels of difficulty. The first level is words which literally spell themselves as children convert their letter-sound knowledge to encoding spoken words. This level contains regular short vowel words, pure and simple.

The second level contains within-word patterns, basically long vowel spellings.

The third level would add words with other vowel teams such as au, aw, ou, ow, all, ar, er, etc. It would also include earlier words with minimal suffixes as matted, making, etc., words which involve syllable juncture as hoping/hopping.

A fourth level would include words with extensive affixing and a fifth level contains words whose pronunciation patterns don't follow spelling generalities.

Teachers can easily create individualized spelling programs by regularly testing students over the easiest lists and moving to higher levels. Skip all the extraneous material in spelling books. Create a grid on which you can record spelling mastery. If a child misses a word, it becomes a part of his/her individualized spelling program. They should have a maximum of five words on their current lists. Children can drill and test each other on these words and allow you to grade the tests. You then record mastery and give out new individual lists. This is really less work than it appears to be. I guess I need to really get this planned out and available on my website.

The second way to approach instruction is to include lessons that help the whole class move ahead into the next level of development. This can be done through hunting for words with particular vowel patterns and analyzing them to see how consistently pronunciation and spelling mesh. The words that don't mesh become the real sight words. As one moves through this kind of hunting and sorting, one picks out words which can be affixed in certain ways.

Oh, this is getting cumbersome. If you email me, I'll give you the URL for a website that may explain it further. I just did three presentations yesterday and today on this subject and as I did, I began to think in terms of writing this out in a form that teachers can follow. Grace

Back again. Try Lake County, OH It is beautiful, small towns dotting the coast of Lake Erie, great pay, strong unions, and only 30 milesfrom Cleveland. I lived and taught there for 15 years, still have strong ties and know lots of people, and feel homesick as I write this. Look at the Perry, OH Lake Countyschools (there is more than one Perry) It is the highest paying district in OH (average pay of $55,000 County average is $49,000)and also one of the smallest. World class facilities are the compliments of the nuclear plant.

[url]http://www.perry-lake.k12.oh.us/[/url]
[url]http://www.lakeco-oh.com/school.html[/url]
[url]http://www.ode.state.oh.us/data/staff_salary/CSTBL4_2001.TXT[/url]

Grace - I would love to get any information you have. (Your profile says that your email address isn't available, so I can't ask you privately, but I think other people would like the information too. <g>)

I don't understand why the email didn't come through since I DID list it in my profile. My website is also listed there but I'll add it here: <[url]http://www.spellangtree.k12.il.us[/url]> My email addy is simply [email:25p0xyfi]gsh@mc.net[/email:25p0xyfi] so you should be able to get through. Since I posted the last message I've given a lot of thought to what I might add to the site in relation to individualizing spelling instruction but it's going to take a while to get it all together.

Grace

Hmm. Maybe you didn't check the box to allow other users to see your email address? This is the message I get when I click on "Click here to email Grace/IL":

Sorry! That user has specified that they do not wish to receive emails through this board. If you still wish to send an email to this user, please contact the administrator and they may be able to help

But thanks for the URL!

Added after visiting the site

This looks really good, Grace! The way my program is set up, I get my first educational training in a "cram course" in July and August and start teaching in September. You'd think NYC would use the time between acceptance and beginning training (which can be as long as 12 months!) to have us start reading and such, but no. So, I'm trying to teach myself and I'm devouring as much material as I can on my own. As soon as my cash situation eases (in a few weeks, I hope), I'll be ordering a set of your materials to study.

One question about the material: I hope to be teaching 4th graders (maybe third, but I don't want younger than that), and I'll be in what NYC calls a "hard to staff" school, possibly a school that's in danger of losing its state registration. I expect that a) there will be children of vastly differing abilities in the class, and b) that many will be coming to the 4th grade with major deficits in reading and spelling. Since they won't have been exposed to this teaching method in the earlier grades, is there a way to introduce it effectively that late in the process?

Thanks for all the information!