{"collectionById":{"b1dae2ea-98b2-4e8a-9ac5-3ea5de6f6688":{"id":"b1dae2ea-98b2-4e8a-9ac5-3ea5de6f6688","name":"Substack Writings","fieldSchemas":[{"id":"f61f5a83-1613-413f-b551-1325163ac001","name":"Title","type":"plain_text","role":"primary"},{"id":"d13e3c45-1025-4da5-a87f-c674c23b1d03","name":"Slug","type":"slug","role":"slug"},{"id":"fb18b1d5-be2a-4193-8702-66e37269b64d","name":"Rich text","type":"rich_text"}],"itemById":{"3179fa20-5ce4-42e8-ba83-c37b558bb63b":{"id":"3179fa20-5ce4-42e8-ba83-c37b558bb63b","index":"$","collectionId":"b1dae2ea-98b2-4e8a-9ac5-3ea5de6f6688","fields":[{"id":"f4b9e7c6-7857-4812-868e-74d105a84378","value":"{\"root\":{\"children\":[{\"children\":[{\"detail\":0,\"format\":0,\"mode\":\"normal\",\"style\":\"\",\"text\":\"Chapter IV\",\"type\":\"text\",\"version\":1}],\"direction\":null,\"format\":\"\",\"indent\":0,\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"version\":1,\"textFormat\":0,\"textStyle\":\"\"},{\"children\":[{\"detail\":0,\"format\":0,\"mode\":\"normal\",\"style\":\"\",\"text\":\"The Next Phase\",\"type\":\"text\",\"version\":1}],\"direction\":null,\"format\":\"\",\"indent\":0,\"type\":\"heading\",\"version\":1,\"tag\":\"h3\"},{\"children\":[{\"detail\":0,\"format\":0,\"mode\":\"normal\",\"style\":\"\",\"text\":\" \",\"type\":\"text\",\"version\":1}],\"direction\":null,\"format\":\"\",\"indent\":0,\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"version\":1,\"textFormat\":0,\"textStyle\":\"\"},{\"children\":[{\"detail\":0,\"format\":0,\"mode\":\"normal\",\"style\":\"\",\"text\":\"The serendipity of discovering that I did not know how to teach reading, that there were reasons why children had difficulty learning certain kinds of skills and encountering Francis DeWitt’s Reading Clinic in San Rafael, California helped me make the decision to leave my teaching job in that small Northern California school to apprentice and work at the Reading Clinic.\",\"type\":\"text\",\"version\":1}],\"direction\":null,\"format\":\"\",\"indent\":0,\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"version\":1,\"textFormat\":0,\"textStyle\":\"\"},{\"children\":[{\"detail\":0,\"format\":0,\"mode\":\"normal\",\"style\":\"\",\"text\":\" \",\"type\":\"text\",\"version\":1}],\"direction\":null,\"format\":\"\",\"indent\":0,\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"version\":1,\"textFormat\":0,\"textStyle\":\"\"},{\"children\":[{\"detail\":0,\"format\":0,\"mode\":\"normal\",\"style\":\"\",\"text\":\"I was assigned to the care of Alice Mckenna, one of the most talented diagnosticians and teachers I have ever known. Still some 50 years later, she remains a beacon.  She died quite a few years ago, in almost complete anonymity, but she remains present in how I have formulated my vision of education.\",\"type\":\"text\",\"version\":1}],\"direction\":null,\"format\":\"\",\"indent\":0,\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"version\":1,\"textFormat\":0,\"textStyle\":\"\"},{\"children\":[{\"detail\":0,\"format\":0,\"mode\":\"normal\",\"style\":\"\",\"text\":\" \",\"type\":\"text\",\"version\":1}],\"direction\":null,\"format\":\"\",\"indent\":0,\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"version\":1,\"textFormat\":0,\"textStyle\":\"\"},{\"children\":[{\"detail\":0,\"format\":0,\"mode\":\"normal\",\"style\":\"\",\"text\":\"Alice taught me what was known, at that time. about visual processing and visual memory and how critical they were to acquiring reading skills.  She showed me how to use a tachistoscope to flash sequences of letters and words – then, we believed that we could speed up the student’s ability to visually scan and remember information. She also introduced me to the use of the metronome to pace a student’s reading (a technique I have seen returning recently); she provided me with lists of words to become “sight words,” taught me the Slingerland Method of teaching reading (an explicit, multi-sensory and systematic reading program), and tutored me in the administration of and how to analyze the results of the tests of cognition and learning available at the time. She introduced me to the huge closet of games that helped students develop their visual processing and guided me to always ask, ”What does this task tap?” She always made herself available for questions, taught me to crochet, a skill others failed at teaching me because of my very left-handed approach, and unrelentingly guided me to “pay attention to details.”\",\"type\":\"text\",\"version\":1}],\"direction\":null,\"format\":\"\",\"indent\":0,\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"version\":1,\"textFormat\":0,\"textStyle\":\"\"},{\"children\":[{\"detail\":0,\"format\":0,\"mode\":\"normal\",\"style\":\"\",\"text\":\" \",\"type\":\"text\",\"version\":1}],\"direction\":null,\"format\":\"\",\"indent\":0,\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"version\":1,\"textFormat\":0,\"textStyle\":\"\"},{\"children\":[{\"detail\":0,\"format\":0,\"mode\":\"normal\",\"style\":\"\",\"text\":\"When I began my apprenticeship at the DeWitt Reading Clinic, Alice was responsible for my training. Then like a new waiter in a restaurant, I followed and observed a trained and skilled Education Therapist for an extended period of time.  Alice determined when I was ready to meet my first student.\",\"type\":\"text\",\"version\":1}],\"direction\":null,\"format\":\"\",\"indent\":0,\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"version\":1,\"textFormat\":0,\"textStyle\":\"\"},{\"children\":[{\"detail\":0,\"format\":0,\"mode\":\"normal\",\"style\":\"\",\"text\":\" \",\"type\":\"text\",\"version\":1}],\"direction\":null,\"format\":\"\",\"indent\":0,\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"version\":1,\"textFormat\":0,\"textStyle\":\"\"},{\"children\":[{\"detail\":0,\"format\":0,\"mode\":\"normal\",\"style\":\"\",\"text\":\"It was a warm summer morning, when I went to meet Pauli. Alice had tested him and was there to introduce him to me and to guide my first day. He was a small 6-year-old who was having significant difficulty learning to read.  Pauli was wearing a cowboy hat, had  6 shooters holstered on his sides, a plastic sword tucked into his belt and a compass in his hand. Alice winked at me and said in a stage whisper, “Pauli has come prepared to defend himself, and if need be, find his way home.” She knew how frightened he was and was cuing me to be aware of that as I worked with him, while letting him know that she understood how scared he was.\",\"type\":\"text\",\"version\":1}],\"direction\":null,\"format\":\"\",\"indent\":0,\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"version\":1,\"textFormat\":0,\"textStyle\":\"\"},{\"children\":[{\"detail\":0,\"format\":0,\"mode\":\"normal\",\"style\":\"\",\"text\":\" \",\"type\":\"text\",\"version\":1}],\"direction\":null,\"format\":\"\",\"indent\":0,\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"version\":1,\"textFormat\":0,\"textStyle\":\"\"},{\"children\":[{\"detail\":0,\"format\":0,\"mode\":\"normal\",\"style\":\"\",\"text\":\" \",\"type\":\"text\",\"version\":1}],\"direction\":null,\"format\":\"\",\"indent\":0,\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"version\":1,\"textFormat\":0,\"textStyle\":\"\"},{\"children\":[{\"detail\":0,\"format\":0,\"mode\":\"normal\",\"style\":\"\",\"text\":\" \",\"type\":\"text\",\"version\":1}],\"direction\":null,\"format\":\"\",\"indent\":0,\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"version\":1,\"textFormat\":0,\"textStyle\":\"\"},{\"children\":[{\"detail\":0,\"format\":0,\"mode\":\"normal\",\"style\":\"\",\"text\":\"I have encountered many Pauli’s in my years of teaching, tutoring and testing. Most of them have invisible, protection shields and conceal their weapons, but the anguish, frustration, defeat and fear is always palpable.\",\"type\":\"text\",\"version\":1}],\"direction\":null,\"format\":\"\",\"indent\":0,\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"version\":1,\"textFormat\":0,\"textStyle\":\"\"},{\"children\":[{\"detail\":0,\"format\":0,\"mode\":\"normal\",\"style\":\"\",\"text\":\" \",\"type\":\"text\",\"version\":1}],\"direction\":null,\"format\":\"\",\"indent\":0,\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"version\":1,\"textFormat\":0,\"textStyle\":\"\"},{\"children\":[{\"detail\":0,\"format\":0,\"mode\":\"normal\",\"style\":\"\",\"text\":\"Alice guided me through that first intimidating day with Pauli. When we reviewed how the tutoring session had progressed, she pointed out that most of the time I was teaching beyond Pauli’s level of understanding. Alice advised me to “backup, backup until the student gets that gleam in the eye that lets you know they get it.  Then you will know where to begin.”\",\"type\":\"text\",\"version\":1}],\"direction\":null,\"format\":\"\",\"indent\":0,\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"version\":1,\"textFormat\":0,\"textStyle\":\"\"},{\"children\":[{\"detail\":0,\"format\":0,\"mode\":\"normal\",\"style\":\"\",\"text\":\" \",\"type\":\"text\",\"version\":1}],\"direction\":null,\"format\":\"\",\"indent\":0,\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"version\":1,\"textFormat\":0,\"textStyle\":\"\"},{\"children\":[{\"detail\":0,\"format\":0,\"mode\":\"normal\",\"style\":\"\",\"text\":\"Years later, when I was teaching Master’s students in Education, Alice’s words were still being heard. I told my students that there is a great temptation when a child says, “I don’t get it” to respond with a rapid and confident, “Oh sure you can.  This is easy. Just let me show you.” And then when the student’s eyes gloss over, it is easy to think to oneself, “if she /he/they would just focus…they would get it!” I explained to those Master’s candidates, as Alice did to me that it is precisely in those moments, that “backing up until you see the gleam in the eye” is what is needed.\",\"type\":\"text\",\"version\":1}],\"direction\":null,\"format\":\"\",\"indent\":0,\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"version\":1,\"textFormat\":0,\"textStyle\":\"\"},{\"children\":[{\"detail\":0,\"format\":0,\"mode\":\"normal\",\"style\":\"\",\"text\":\" \",\"type\":\"text\",\"version\":1}],\"direction\":null,\"format\":\"\",\"indent\":0,\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"version\":1,\"textFormat\":0,\"textStyle\":\"\"},{\"children\":[{\"detail\":0,\"format\":0,\"mode\":\"normal\",\"style\":\"\",\"text\":\"Pauli was struggling to learn to read and backing up far enough to find the gleam in the eye” was a real challenge. The remarkable development of the written symbol to communicate verbal information is predicated on our ability to see particular configurations, presents in particular patterns, to associate them with the world of sound, and to remember them. It is a complex process developed late in human history, but of almost immeasurable significance in the migration of the  human experience. At its simplest, and often most pleasurable, reading brings the story-teller into our presence whenever we want him/her/they. Its more complex contributions are in effect in nearly everything we eat, drink, wear, drive, reside in, communicate with, recreate with, etc. and it is the medium of disinformation at its most potent. Learning to read is essential for full participation in human society, so Pauli’s struggle, as that of Charlie Williams, was a critical struggle.\",\"type\":\"text\",\"version\":1}],\"direction\":null,\"format\":\"\",\"indent\":0,\"type\":\"paragraph\",\"version\":1,\"textFormat\":0,\"textStyle\":\"\"}],\"direction\":null,\"format\":\"\",\"indent\":0,\"type\":\"root\",\"version\":1}}","itemId":"3179fa20-5ce4-42e8-ba83-c37b558bb63b","fieldSchemaId":"fb18b1d5-be2a-4193-8702-66e37269b64d"},{"id":"acc17bd7-9acf-4233-8fc0-7ba3bdee74b8","value":"Chapter IV - The Next Phase","itemId":"3179fa20-5ce4-42e8-ba83-c37b558bb63b","fieldSchemaId":"f61f5a83-1613-413f-b551-1325163ac001"}]}}}},"slugByItemId":{"3179fa20-5ce4-42e8-ba83-c37b558bb63b":"chapter-iv-the-next-phase","6a9656da-e81e-4165-ab7a-409435d7dfa7":"chapter-iii-labeling-helpful","3ba58cdb-8831-4ce0-92b4-3971ce1d5de8":"chapter-ii-learning-to-read","aff29572-3ce1-47a5-b463-be5af2bb0c33":"chapter-i-maybe-it-started-here"}}