I learned of your spelling curriculum at a homeschool book fair in Arlington, Texas from a vendor located outside of Houston.  After pouring over your website, I ordered the first level of spelling for my 15 year old son who has a diagnosis of high functioning autism. This is so exciting.  With eleven years of homeschooling, six children and a special ed. degree this is the greatest approach to spelling I have ever seen for anyone, not just those with learning differences.  I will pass your website on to our local school's special ed. director. Your hard work and dedication is evident. We will be start the spelling as soon as it arrives.  I am expecting great gains in spelling and reading this summer.

Sincerely,
Sandra D.

Thank you very much for taking the time to listen to me prattle on about Luke and my quest to "rectify"  the teaching glitch that I perceived happening. 

I can hardly wait to get the materials from you.  Luke is reading at the moment, "Hank the Cowdog" #3.  I get the biggest charge out of hearing him cackle over that crazy dog's antics.  As much as the "Hank" books are a far cry from perfect English and aren't considered "classic or good literature", I appreciate John Erickson's ability to entertain, grab and encourage a reticent reader. I read a little blurb about the "Hank" series in a catalog.  It said  " Hank the Cowdog is sort of the Don Quixote of the Texas Ranch, a  canine cross between  Maxwell Smart and John Wayne". I cringe at the slang and play on English that is used.  But Luke already knows that difference.  He heard me complaining about some of the "Hank terminology" but he said, "oh Mom, don't worry, that is  just doglish".  I had to laugh.

A year ago this child was totally unmotivated to read and learn.   Third grade was a very bad year for him.  Third grade is THE pivotal year.  This child is naturally curious from birth and loved to learn.  He forever was asking "why" and still does. His fire was put out by the situation at school.  I knew we were heading down a slippery slope last October 2000. There was tremendous turmoil in my mind as to what to do, after all, what did I know? I am not a teacher.  But folks,  I AM A MOTHER.  I told my husband that from now on, I listen to my mommy intuition and will advocate for my child until Kingdom Come!

We did narrow his difficulty down to  the auditory processing.  It was just a small connection that had to be strengthened. The problem was big enough that if he didn't get immediate attention, we would have lost him by fifth grade. He was incredibly frustrated in third grade, I hate to think what would have happened by fifth grade.  The audiologist and the language specialist both agreed that he would respond beautifully to the therapy in six months.  Luke worked very diligently on his Earobics, he wanted to get this problems "rectified".  He understood what needed to be done.  We think that this bit of brain damage happened at birth.    He was three weeks overdue, I had a 36 hour petocin induced labor and I was told his birth was considered, "traumatic", by the doctor.   He did have neurological damage, a slight droop with his right lip and eye after birth, but the doctor didn't know if there would be any residual damage. 

 So you see, my radar has always been up.  All of that was coupled by the fact that in my husbands family, dyslexia runs rampant. Peter has 7 brothers and one sister.  Of the 8 boys, 4 have  dyslexia and  both of his sister's sons struggle.   Of course, none of the boys were diagnosed. That was 35 years ago, compounded by being in Catholic school.  They were just told to "work harder", you can do better than that,   you aren't trying hard enough".  Again, no Catholic school, then or now,  has the staffing, facilities or money to deal with children with learning problems.  It's hard enough for even the most affluent school districts to get the funding and trained professionals to work with these children.  I hear it from all of my teacher friends. The frustration level is mind boggling.  By the way, I am not bashing the Catholic schools. I am Catholic through and through. I just had such high hopes and held such high esteem for the institution.  But, they are like any other institution, money and staffing are the great equalizer. I wish I had a magic wand to fix the system.  But it boils down to one word at a time, one page at a time and one child at a time.   It's really a shame that more wasn't know 30-40  years ago about this.  It is also a shame that parents didn't understand and if and when they did, they denied there was a  problem.  There is should be no shame attached to a child whose wiring is different than another child.  In our crazy society of the "cookie cutter learner mentality",  I hate to think how many children have fallen through the cracks.  The world is not perfect and I do realize that most teachers do the best job they can given the tools and limitations pressed on them.  Parents aren't trained professional educators either.  So it's a real tough situation.  Thank God for teachers like you who do what they can to "help" by providing a curriculum.

Someday, after I get Luke squared away, I would love to find out how I can help kids in juvenile hall.  I read that they figure over 80% of those kids have a learning problem, or worse than that, nobody loved them enough to read to them as children and the theory of "just let the schools do it, that is the job of the teachers", just doesn't cut it.   Parents need to understand that THEY are the primary educators of their children.  It can't be the job of a single teacher or school. After my experience with Luke over the past 15 months, listening to other parents lament about their children and listening to the teachers side of the story,  I can sure see the frustration on everyone's part.

What isn't fair, is expecting one teacher to fix a child after years of neglect, non diagnosis, or misdiagnosis.  That is where Mommy Bear comes in.  I am not too opinionated about all of this, now am I ?  just feel really sorry for all of the kids lost in the shuffle and for the parents who have no idea where to turn.   I for one, am very grateful to people like you, Mrs. Spalding, Dr. Orton and the Pattersons for caring enough to created material for the frustrated parent, teacher and students.   The information is out there, it's just incredibly overwhelming for the average person.  It is also very time consuming to do the remedial work.  I work fulltime "for Luke".  There isn't a better gift  that we could give this child, than to be able to  read, spell and write with confidence.  The sky is the limit when you have the tools to learn. One more little story before I sign off here.  I realized last spring that "total immersion" in language and reading was the only way I was going to help Luke.  I delved into Jim Trelease's book, The Read Aloud Handbook, and found lots of books that I thought Luke would enjoy.   I kept track of what we read together, what I read aloud, what he read aloud, what he read to himself and what we listened to on tape. I was amazed when I totaled the books on our list in September.....We had read, swallowed and digested 99 books!  What a difference that has made in him.  I could tell when he started to read his own chapter books.  He likes series books.  I read out loud to him all three of the Pippi Longstocking books.  He read all five of the books from the  Cricket in Times Square.  He has read a delightful little series called,  "Santa Paws".  Do I even have to tell you that he has read the first three Harry Potter Books and listened to them on tape at least twice!!!!  I am holding out on the fourth Harry Potter book because it is 735 pages and I have a bunch of social studies reading that we need to go through.  Can you believe that I have to "keep a book away from him".  Too much!!!! He has read 26 chapter books at or above supposed grade level, what ever that is, since this school year started.  My famous last words to any of my friends who are having trouble getting their kids interested or turned on to books is "read, read, read, read, read to them".  Find out what interests them and GO FOR IT! 

Again, thanks for all the work you have done over the decades for the children and  if I can be a little selfish, for my Luke.   If you need to get me for any reason on the phone because of the order or if you think I might benefit from other material you have,  Thanks again.

You are in luck, Luke finished his book and now I have to go.  He is starting in on Math. 

Most sincerely,  Lois M.

I can't decide if you crack me up into little pieces or big pieces, but you really make me laugh.  I love your sense of humor. I have been reading your book on teaching reading and  I just shake my head and laugh.  You are so right about it all !!! Reading upside down is hard, but I can do it easily, I can even decipher the "creative spelling" upside down without translation. You did get me on the Philadelphia spelling. I was even raised in Philadelphia. I had to look at that one a few times before I got it! The sad part is, I know you aren't joking, I know people who do spell like that.  What a shame. I think your theories on why things are so pathetic in the institutional schools, are right on the money.

Luke and I are working our way through the sequential spelling. He is doing very well. He is on  #11 of the Tricky words. We are having a lot of fun laughing at the craziness of this language!  I figure that we have "embraced the enemy (ENGLISH) and it is ours".  

Not only has Luke overcome his fear of this language, but he is processing dictation much better. I don't even hesitate to use the words "smoothly process", now.  We have been at this a year. Our Independence Day anniversary from institutional school will be March 8th.  In retrospect, I wish I had totally focused on the alphabet sounds, basic phonograms and your spelling program instead of waffling around with different spelling lists.  The AVKO is so non threatening to him. It just flows  logically.  Our favorite find  over the past week has been:  assistants and assistance. Luke just howled over that one.    Progress is going very smoothly. I might send you some samples of Luke's  work just FYI. 

Thank you so much for all the work you did. I am telling the parents of the boys I know who are having trouble. Hope it brings you more business.   I really should set up a tutoring business, but I need to put my energy into my child. I hope that I can give other parents the confidence to work with their children they way I have with Luke. I tell them that the materials are all available and easy to use.  I will show them what we did and the sequence of our progress.   I wish we could help all the children who need it, but this is one of those situations were it is one child at a time. Without exception, when I show a parent your sequential spelling system and the Tricky Words, the reaction is always the same, "Wow, that makes sense".  Again, thank you for your patience and good work.   Lois Miller