Letters January 2007

A classroom community
Thank you for such useful information in "Constructing a Community" by Mary Ellen Bafumo ("Best Practices," August/ September 2006). I am a big believer that developing a positive, personal relationship with all students before trying to teach them is the critical ingredient to success in educating all children.
Walter Harris
via e-mail

Thank you, Brigantine
What a pleasant surprise it was to open Teaching K-8 and see my old hometown of Brigantine, NJ, featured ("It Takes a Child...," August/September 2006). I attended what was then called Brigantine Central School and I graduated from Brigantine North Middle School. I had ADD, which wasn't diagnosed back then, and a speech problem. I was labeled by the middle-school guidance counselor as likely to drop out of high school. With the amazing teachers and resources from the Brigantine schools, I changed my life around and graduated high school twelfth out of 410 students. I now hold two masters degrees, one in Biological Education and the other in Library and Information Science. I have been a library media teacher at Hillview Crest Elementary school in Hayward, CA, for seven years.

If anyone from the Brigantine schools is reading this, please know you changed the world for the better by making this former underachieving student a teacher.
Beth Morris-Wong
Oakland, CA

Phonemic fun
I enjoyed reading Maryann Manning's "Phonemic Awareness" ("Celebrations in Reading and Writing," November/ December 2005). The key point that was meaningful to me was that children's phonemic awareness will gradually develop as they learn to read and write. It is so true that regardless of children's educational experience, they will learn and progress at vastly different rates.

I also really liked the Turtle Talk activity suggestion. How fun for the children to pretend they are slow-talking turtles! This will help me hear every sound. I will definitely implement this activity while determining the phonemic awareness level of a child.
Tammy Gerial
La Palma, CA

January, 2007, Vol.37, No.4