Welcome to my website!
This page provides a brief overview of my professional background and experience. It describes the approach to reading I developed in my K-2 bilingual classroom and later modified for preschoolers. It includes an analysis of how starting with a child’s own “Special Words” helps them develop a love for reading and ultimately become a very skillful reader. It ends with an invitation to work together on what, for me, is a voluntary project in my retirement, focused on showing adults how to help all children learn to read and write with the same pleasure and ease they learned to speak.
Theoretical Base and Teaching Experience
When my daughters were preschoolers, I became so inspired by Maria Montessori’s books that I wanted them to experience her methods. Since I didn’t have the training myself, I hired a Dutch Montessori Directress and established a preschool. (See newspaper clippings.) The classroom management strategies I gained from that experience helped me later create the active reading/writing work periods described on this website.
A few years after my Montessori experience, I discovered Sylvia Ashton-Warner’s concept of Key Vocabulary, which she explains are powerful “captions for a child’s most vivid mind pictures.” I now refer to them as a child’s Special Words. Those are the words a child uses to identify something they love, fear, or simply find especially interesting.
The emotional charge attached to a child’s Special Words makes them a powerful magnet for skill development. So, Special Words are at the heart of this approach. Unfortunately, Ashton-Warner’s book, Teacher, which introduced the concept, wasn’t published until after Montessori’s death. Otherwise, I believe Montessori would have recognized the power in beginning with the child’s own words and incorporated them into her reading activities; thus, they would be well-known, valued, and used in various places throughout the world by now.
Shortly after I began experimenting with Special Words, I interviewed for a position in a public, K-2, bilingual classroom in Southern California. Many of the children there had been struggling with reading. So, when I explained my interest in approaching reading through a child’s Special Words, they hired me with the understanding that I would experiment with using them as the basis of my reading program.
Close to half of my students were the children of migrant farmworkers. About half of them couldn’t speak English. The rest of my students were native English speakers. Some in that second group had the advantage of a print-rich home environment. However, had little or no experience with print. A few in both groups were being held back in first grade for a second year because they weren’t learning to read.
Obviously, I needed a completely individualized reading program. So, I combined what I’d learned from Montessori and Ashton-Warner and began developing the personalized approach I now call Special Words & The Steps. Working that out during the first year or two, with my class of 26 children, was a hectic experience. But it turned out to be well worth the effort.
Since that experience in the primary grades, I have also worked with preschool children. I made some modifications for them. They go through the same step-by-step process with their Special Words and easily learn to read and write during their preschool years. And they love doing it!
Special Words & The Steps
A session with Special Words begins by prompting a child to talk about something of particular interest to them. Once they settle on a word that describes their thinking, we write it for them on a sturdy card and help them place it on their metal Word Ring.
If the child has asked for a true Special Word, they’ll recognize it the next day and thereafter. If not, we blame the word, remove it, and try for a better one that day. Soon, even a very young child will have a collection of words they immediately recognize. This is not yet “reading.” The purpose is to help them 1) connect print to their “mind pictures” (concepts) and the words they use to describe them, 2) view print as just another way to talk, and 3) enjoy learning to read and write.
Children are intrigued by seeing what they say translated into print and want to do it, too. So, we carefully let them see and hear what we’re doing as we write. For example, we demonstrate how to listen for the sounds in a word (phonemic awareness) and choose the letters to spell them (phonics). And for letter formation, we have them trace over the letters after we’ve written the entire word.
As a child advances, they also dictate a sentence about their word, which we write on the back of their word card. That allows them to see how capitalization, punctuation, and other writing skills work. Plus, it allows them to build a print vocabulary of words that hold sentences together and clarify meaning. They don’t memorize any of this. Instead, over time and at their own pace, they work through a series of follow-up activities for Special Words, called The Steps. The child progresses through four Steps over time. Each child moves through them at their own pace, allowing them to experience how print works and begin learning to use it. 
At each Step, a child creates a one-page, illustrated “story” in their 5-page writing book. The work pictured here is that of a child at Step 2. The books the child creates take the place of professionally published “readers.” They’re far better suited to each child than anything a parent or school district could buy.
And they’re far less expensive; all it takes is paper, pens, and glue, plus about 10-15 minutes of an adult’s time. A busy parent can have a caregiver, family member, or friend work with the child. Then, based on the child’s progress, the parent decides when the child is ready to move on to the next Step.
Since reading and writing are two sides of the same coin, the child’s new writing skills are also transferring to reading. By the time they’re on Step 4, they’re beginning to write independently and recognize words in their favorite storybooks, on signs, and elsewhere. Then, continuing with Special Words at Step 4, they begin writing more than one sentence and can read simple, unfamiliar books. After that, we help them choose books on topics of special interest to them.
Doing this for decades, I know of only two children who didn’t learn to read using this approach. Both also could not speak, even in their home language.
Beyond My K-2 Classroom
The combination of Special Words & The Steps was highly successful. The children enjoyed their work, and even those who had previously been struggling with reading flourished. As word spread, teachers in the surrounding area began visiting to observe the class in action.
They often commented on how much the children seemed to enjoy their work. And that while they were free to walk around and talk to one another during our busy writing work period, they approached their Steps activities with an unusual sense of purpose. That’s partly because I had organized our writing period by giving Montessori-inspired, “silent demonstrations” to show the children how to carry out the routines needed for a smooth-running, active work period. It’s also because they were creating something they were proud of and enjoyed doing.
With the interest those visits generated, I began holding weekend workshops to show other teachers how to do it. Eventually, the county reading specialist brought in the nationally known reading expert, Dr. Jeannette Veatch, for a visit. After seeing my class in action, she encouraged me to leave the classroom, pursue an advanced degree, and focus on teaching others how to do it.
So, I left the classroom and entered the Ph.D. program at Claremont Graduate University (CGU), where I later taught for over 20 years. During that time, I also worked as a contract consultant for the California Department of Education, designing and leading workshops on interdisciplinary projects for older students. As a private consultant, I continued to present reading workshops for individual schools and districts.
How This Personalized Approach Helps Children
As I began my studies at Claremont Graduate University (CGU), my goal was to understand why Special Words & The Steps were so beneficial, especially for children who had previously struggled. I already knew the approach was comprehensive because it develops the skills targeted by both traditional methods: 1) The Phonics-First Approach, which emphasizes decoding, and 2) The Whole/Balanced Language Approach, which focuses on gaining a meaningful print vocabulary.
In a moment, I’ll briefly describe what I’ve concluded from my studies at CGU, my experience with children, and my analysis of the latest neuroscience research that explains why this approach works so well. But first, let’s pause to clarify what I mean by “reading.”
Definition of Reading Guiding This Approach: Our ultimate goal is to help a child become an avid, skillful reader. That’s someone who rapidly transforms passages of print into something like a video story in their mind. When they reach a word they don’t recognize, they sound it out. Then, they consider whether the word they came up with makes sense in the video story playing in their mind. If not, they try again, until they think they understand the meaning of the passage as the author intended. And if they do, we say they comprehend what they’ve read.
Now, let’s consider some insight I’ve gained about how this approach guides a child toward that long-term goal.
Special Words & The Steps Support How a Young Child Learns Naturally. An infant is born with what I call their Natural Learning Strategy. It’s a very young child’s primary method of learning, and it begins to diminish around age five or six. In short, it goes as follows:
A Young Child’s Natural Learning Strategy
Very young children are like sponges. They’re also natural mimics.
They spontaneously absorb and copy what they see and hear us do —
If they find it interesting enough.
Interest Is Key. Notice that interest triggers the child’s natural learning strategy. And by definition, a child’s Special Word identifies someone or something the find especially interesting. Coupled with that, a child is also fascinated by seeing what they say translated into print. So, they’re not only interested in the “mind picture” that comes with their Special Word, but also in discovering that what they say can be written down for them. That heightened interest increases the power of their natural learning strategy, so they pay close attention to the skills we’re modeling for them as we write.
At Any Age, We Learn By Adding Something New to What We Already Know. As adults, when we want to learn something quite new, we can create diagrams, flowcharts, analogies, etc., to relate that new information to something we already know. But a young child can’t do that. So we must introduce them to print by attaching it to something the child already knows. And what does a child know better than their mental images of something they find especially interesting and the words they use to identify them: their own Special Words.
The child’s natural learning strategy is powerful. They use it to learn to speak, which is argueably more complex than learning to read. And that strategy doesn’t just evaporate or shut down once they can talk. That strategy is strongest during their first six years or so and gradually diminishes as they grow, but it never completely leaves. So, when we see they’re able to hold a conversation about something of interest to them, we can use the same process with print that worked so well with learning to talk. Here, you’ll discover how to do it in a way that’s simple, fail-safe, and enjoyable.
Bypassing a Child’s Special Words Makes Reading More Difficult Than Necessary. When we ignore how a child naturally learns and bypass their Special Words, we create a gap between what the child already knows and can do and what we’re asking them to learn. So, introducing print with phonics or with a basal reader leaves a gap for any child to try to cross. A child from a print-rich environment can manage it, but it takes some doing. However, for a child not coming from a print-rich environment, that gap is quite formidable. They struggle, become confused, lose confidence, shy away from print, or just give up. Why take that chance? When we start with the child’s own Special Words, there is no gap.
Helping a Child Learn to Talk vs. Read. The process I’m describing here for print is very similar to the one we instinctively use to help them learn to talk. But there’s one significant difference. With speech, we model, and then we wait to see what the child says. Here, we model print in much the same way. But then we don’t just wait. Instead, to ensure skill development, we guide them, over time and at their own pace, through the graduated set of follow-up activities called The Steps.
Using Special Words Places a Child on the Path To Skillful Reading. Meeting a child exactly where they are, and attaching print to what they know and can say, they immediately enjoy and gain confidence with print. Using a structure like The Steps guides the child along a fail-safe, enjoyable path toward writing, then reading. So, a child comes to love reading and chooses to do it — a lot. That’s crucial, because it takes lots of practice to become a very skillful reader.
When Should a Child Begin with Special Words? Again, a child is ready to add print as soon as they can hold a conversation about things that interest them. Some might think exposing a young preschooler to print is too early. (And it would be if we were “teaching it” more traditionally.) But the child has already learned to speak, which is arguably far more complex than learning to read. So, why call a halt after that and make them wait a few years? Especially not knowing what approach to reading they may encounter later.
Starting as soon as they’re ready allows them to begin absorbing and copying print skills when their natural learning strategy is still very powerful. It begins to diminish around age three and has diminished considerably by age six or so. But even then, if the child does wait, immersing them in Special Words still works unusually well, as I discovered in my K-2 classroom.
Using Special Words Is Also Valuable in a Bilingual Classroom. If there’s someone to take their dictation, a non-English speaker can remain in the home classroom, start Special Words in their home language, then transition to English when they’re ready. That avoids any delay in learning to read. Also, remaining in the classroom, there’s no possible stigma attached to being somehow “different.” Additionally, working alongside English speakers during the active writing work period helps newcomers “pick up” English, simply by being immersed in it.
My Purpose Now
I have never forgotten the children I worked with and how delighted they were to see what they could accomplish. Now that we’re witnessing yet another swing of the proverbial pendulum, this time back to Phonics, I’m more concerned than ever about what this trend will mean for too many children. These swings have been repeating for over 70 years now. Another one will come again after this, until we take a more comprehensive approach that meets every child where they are and gradually guides them forward. I’ve shared one here, and if we put our heads together, we can devise ways to do something similar for every child.
Finally, this website is a work in progress. Try as I may, I can’t find a technician who can make the email and message buttons below work properly! (Or, at least one I can afford, in this all-volunteer project.) So, if you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to contact me through my Facebook Group, Helping All Kids Write to Read. Posts, Comments, and questions sent there come directly to me and remain private unless you indicate you want them to be posted.
Millions of children are dependent on us. We can easily do better. Let’s share experiences and ideas for helping every child learn to read and write, with the same pleasure and ease they learned to speak.