One, Two, Buckle My Shoe: Nurturing Learners

By Nancy Cole Lutz

NOT STATISTICS BUT INDIVIDUALS live in these stories of personal quests to develop successful learning strategies. These three students illustrate different learning styles. One student was a strong visual learner with a need to acquire speaking and listening skills. One exhibited such speed of thinking that he could not physically record his thoughts legibly. One had such a strong auditory learning style that spelling both predicable and unpredictable words frustrated her. No one method could satisfy the needs of these elementary students. Instead, approaches tailored to their needs were designed so that their academic careers would be enhanced.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inspiring Voices
• Release date: Oct 22, 2012
• ISBN: 9781462403752

Nancy Cole Lutz

TEACHER, TUTOR, WRITER, STORYTELLER, Nancy Cole Lutz earned a B.A. in education, an M.A. in literature, and an Ed.D. in curriculum and instruction. Both as a classroom teacher and then a learning consultant she focused specifically on developing individuals' learning achievements. Now retired, she lives with husband Ray and dog Bianca.

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Copyright © 2012 Nancy Cole Lutz

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ISBN: 978-1-4624-0376-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4624-0375-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012919113

Inspiring Voices books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

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Inspiring Voices rev. date: 10/18/2012

Table of Contents

Introduction

Some Like It Hot: Cora

Need More Space: Rob

The Play’s the Thing: Lea

Conclusion

Introduction

These educational stories grew out of my experiences tutoring children who were struggling in school. Each of these three students presented a different challenge. I applied educational theory to practice, retaining what worked and researching alternate ideas of instruction. One student was a visual learner, one had processing problems, and one was an auditory learner. Since these three elementary students presented a different challenge, each story stands alone, written in a narrative style that combines fact with imaginative dialogue. Not only is the dialogue fictitious, but the names are also changed. The monthly letters that I wrote to their parents served as the resources to document the progress that the students made.

For a period of twenty-four years, I served as a private tutor to more than 175 students, ranging in age from five to twenty-five. These students came from private, public, and parochial schools although the majority of them attended private schools in the Dallas, Texas, area. During these years, I learned to listen completely, to observe carefully, and to assume every student had the capacity to learn regardless of any label attached to him/her.

My hope is that, after reading these three stories, teachers and parents will gain an understanding of methods, techniques, research, and adaptations of materials that made it possible for these students to become successful individuals. Their basic change was from a passive to an active learner, ready to accept new challenges with courage.

Some Like It Hot: Cora

The telephone rang once, twice. Should I answer it or should the machine take it? I still had lessons to plan, lunch to fix, and dogs to walk. Oh, well, I thought, better to answer it now than to find time to respond to the message. Hello, I said, cutting off my current message which defined a word by giving its historical background.

Oh, Dr. Lutz, I’m so glad you answered the phone. This is Maria, Cora’s mother. Cora is applying to graduate school and wants you to write her a recommendation.

What has she decided to major in? I knew that Cora had had a successful undergraduate experience, academically and socially, being elected president of her sorority as well as serving as homecoming queen while maintaining a high B average.

She’s going for a master’s degree in speech and hearing. She wants to work with children who have difficulty with language. She did so well in the undergraduate courses that she decided to take the clinical audiological degree so that she could become a speech therapist.

I hoped that she didn’t hear me suck in my breath. What a change! How interesting that sometimes learning comes full circle.

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I know that you’re just beginning your private practice. I have a six year old girl that I’d like you to work with, the head of Callier Center’s Speech and Hearing Clinic said. We will do the therapy to correct her speech aberrations, but we want someone to work with her on developing normal language patterns. She doesn’t respond or talk like the normal six year old. She doesn’t have any developmental delays except that she seems extremely passive. She demonstrates a lack of sufficient knowledge to automatically respond to language stimuli that has often been heard. Would you consider working with her on a daily basis?

Oh, my, I did like challenges, but could I help such a young child? Without language skills I knew that her reading would not develop properly, and she might well be branded as a non-learner, suffering the stigma of slowness when she might just need different learning techniques to bring out her talents. You know that my background prepared me to work with children with reading difficulties.

Yes, I know that, but we want someone who will be willing to develop a program that will concentrate on Cora’s strengths and interests rather than follow a prescriptive procedure.

Great! Now I had to put my theories into practice! I had a strong belief that all children learn differently, which placed stress on me as a teacher to discover that mode of effective learning. The normal classroom teacher was often hindered by the sheer numbers of individuals confronting her, but I, as a learning consultant, was supposed to be able to handle these individuals. Okay, I responded, the hesitancy surely reflected in my voice. Have the mother call me to set up an appointment. We’ll do a sample lesson to see if we can work together.

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Cora and her mother appeared at my doorstep promptly at 3:30 p.m. She was a beautiful child with long brown hair, expressive eyes, and a shyly inquisitive air. Her mother held her hand tightly, talking rapidly about Cora’s needs. The mother wanted to wait inside for Cora, but I refused her request, for I feared that having her mother in the same house might distract or hinder Cora’s language practice. I had decided that thirty minutes would be the maximum amount of time for Cora’s daily lessons. Since the Callier Center had done extensive testing with her, I planned to observe her as she performed different tasks for me. I did not want to embarrass her by asking her to talk to me since she was so reticent. Besides my first goal was to build language skills, and Cora was only six so what kind of activities could she do? Consequently, we began a series of projects—popping corn, building models with tinker toys, growing a crystal garden—that Cora then began writing about, using me as her secretary. Interestingly I discovered that she loved repeating sentence patterns, changing perhaps only the final word but leaving the core of the sentence in tact.One of her stories centered around riding her bicycle to my home, captured forever as a photograph which I took. Here is the story that Cora dictated:

I see a big bike and a medium bike just for me.

I see me on the bike.

I see my mom on the bike too.

I see a house.

I see light grass.

I see dark grass too.

I see trees.

I see a pole.

I see cars.

She loved reading this story and others just like it, illustrated with a picture of her as a star performer allowing the experience to remain as a vivid event. She built quite a collection of these language experience stories that developed out of her own command of language, not necessarily innovative but predictable.

As we worked together, Cora demonstrated a desire to develop her own instructions for how an activity would be performed. I would provide her with instructions, one at a time, only to have her revise them, making them more workable for her. She never refused doing an activity, for she seemed to love the adventure of trying an exercise that might be imaginative, a task that she would not be allowed to do at home. Within these thirty minutes we provided multiple opportunities for conversation—the normal