My First Reading Teacher: My Amazing Second Grader, Yvette
Yvette clutched a tattered stuffed Clifford tightly under one arm and a well-worn Clifford book under the other, wearing that adorable, radiant smile that would become so familiar to me. She adored Clifford and wanted to share his adventures with her mother. "My mom can't read to me," Yvette explained, "so I want to learn how to read to her." This little girl possessed a mighty passion that could not be tamed or extinguished. Her giant smile became my introduction to teaching a Special Education Cross-Categorical classroom, and Yvette—with her boundless heart, burning desire, endless curiosity, unwavering passion, remarkable resilience, and contagious love of learning—changed my life as a teacher.
She was so eager to learn that she expected me to start teaching her that very moment. I was taken aback by her persistence and determination. Throughout the entire year, she maintained that giant smile and her giggly, infectious enthusiasm. She was excited every single moment of every day, sounding out words, practicing sight words, and listening intently to read-aloud stories with that same beaming smile. During four-plus hours of daily reading instruction—the school used two 90-minute reading blocks for all students not yet at grade level, including my self-contained classroom—she never complained or grew tired. The only things that would make her pause were her need for an impromptu hug or her excitement when she learned something new. In those moments, hugs were definitely in order. She amazed me and taught me more in that single year than I ever taught her.
Yvette's Marvelous Method
Yvette never quite grasped phonics—not the 44 phonemic sounds or any of the phonemic rules. With her learning disability and the complexity of the English language, she felt lost with most traditional instructional approaches. I was equally lost, being a first-year teacher in a cross-categorical, self-contained special education classroom. I didn't know how to teach reading, let alone how to help a student who had been classified as "mentally retarded" (a term no longer used in special education).
I desperately wanted to help her achieve the goal she had shared with me on that first day of school, so we tried what had worked for me when phonics failed. We treated every word as a sight word and simply practiced, and practiced, and practiced. We worked through the Dolch sight word list first, then made over seven hundred flashcards that year for all the words and phrases in her beloved Clifford books, classic fairy tales, songs, and nursery rhymes. She treasured those flashcards decorated with smiley faces and stickers that celebrated each new word or phrase she mastered. She seemed to measure her reading success by how many flashcards we created together.
We read stories, sang songs, and drilled sight words and Fry Instant Phrases over and over again, punctuating each session with hugs and stickers that celebrated every small victory. We spent three, sometimes four hours a day reading words, writing words in the air, and reading Clifford's stories "over and over" to reach her Clifford reading goal. When you dedicate that much time and energy to a single goal, a reading miracle becomes not just possible, but inevitable.
Yvette became the teacher who showed me how to think outside the box and teach students using whatever method actually works. Blindly following school or district curriculum can lead to failure for so many students who simply learn differently. At the end of the year, when her mom came to visit, Yvette was bursting with pride as she sat down and read Clifford to her mother. Yvette's mom was in tears as she listened to her daughter read. It truly was a miracle.
The Power of Believing
Yvette had been diagnosed with MIMR (mild intellectual disability, formerly called "mildly mentally retarded"), and according to her IEP (Individualized Education Program), she would never learn to read. Her IEP goals and objectives were heartbreakingly limited—her only goal for the entire year was to learn thirteen letters of the alphabet. Nothing more. Nothing else was expected of her.
But it was Yvette's burning desire and our willingness to try something different that made all the difference in the world. "It can't be done." "She can't do it." "It's impossible." "She's retarded." "They will never read." "The books are too hard." I've heard all this nonsense over the past ten years, and these limiting beliefs prevent teachers from truly believing in their students. But Yvette's courage and determination have kept me from ever saying "they can't" or "they won't." When a second-grade student with an intellectual disability learns to read fluently in one year, it forever changes your attitude and expectations as an educator.
We spent that magical year laughing, smiling, hugging, and learning to read—and then reading to learn. Yvette taught me what believing in high expectations truly means for student outcomes. She showed me that with enough love, determination, and creative teaching, miracles happen in classrooms every single day.
She was my first reading teacher, and she taught me the most important lesson of all: never, ever give up on a child's dreams.
My First Reading Teacher: My Amazing Second Grader, Yvette
Yvette was an absolute darling who could melt your heart with her infectious smile. On the first day of school, she was so excited you would have thought she was waiting to enter Disneyland for the first time. She radiated pure joy, happiness, and bliss. She had only one thing on her mind—one single goal that her new school was going to help her achieve: she was going to learn how to read Clifford the Big Red Dog. More importantly, she was going to read her favorite book to her mom.
Yvette clutched a new, stuffed Clifford tightly under one arm and a well-worn Clifford book under the other, wearing that adorable, radiant smile that would become so familiar to me. She adored Clifford and wanted to share his adventures with her mother. "My mom can't read to me," Yvette explained, "so I want to learn how to read to her." This little girl possessed a mighty passion that could not be tamed or extinguished. Her giant smile became my introduction to teaching a Special Education Cross-Categorical classroom, and Yvette—with her boundless heart, burning desire, endless curiosity, unwavering passion, remarkable resilience, and contagious love of learning—changed my life as a teacher.
She was so eager to learn that she expected me to start teaching her that very moment. I was taken aback by her persistence and determination. Throughout the entire year, she maintained that giant smile and her giggly, infectious enthusiasm. She was excited every single moment of every day, sounding out words, practicing sight words, and listening intently to read-aloud stories with that same beaming smile. During four-plus hours of daily reading instruction—the school used two 90-minute reading blocks for all students not yet at grade level, including my self-contained classroom—she never complained or grew tired. The only things that would make her pause were her need for an impromptu hug or her excitement when she learned something new. In those moments, hugs were definitely in order. She amazed me and taught me more in that single year than I ever taught her.
Yvette's Marvelous Method
Yvette never quite grasped phonics—not the 44 phonemic sounds or any of the phonemic rules. With her learning disability and the complexity of the English language, she felt lost with most traditional instructional approaches. I was equally lost, being a first-year teacher in a cross-categorical, self-contained special education classroom. I didn't know how to teach reading, let alone how to help a student who had been classified as "mentally retarded" (a term no longer used in special education).
I desperately wanted to help her achieve the goal she had shared with me on that first day of school, so we tried what had worked for me when phonics failed. We treated every word as a sight word and simply practiced, and practiced, and practiced. We worked through the Dolch sight word list first, then made over seven hundred flashcards that year for all the words and phrases in her beloved Clifford books, classic fairy tales, songs, and nursery rhymes. She treasured those flashcards decorated with smiley faces and stickers that celebrated each new word or phrase she mastered. She seemed to measure her reading success by how many flashcards we created together.
We read stories, sang songs, and drilled sight words and Fry Instant Phrases over and over again, punctuating each session with hugs and stickers that celebrated every small victory. We spent three, sometimes four hours a day reading words, writing words in the air, and reading Clifford's stories "over and over" to reach her Clifford reading goal. When you dedicate that much time and energy to a single goal, a reading miracle becomes not just possible, but inevitable.
Yvette became the teacher who showed me how to think outside the box and teach students using whatever method actually works. Blindly following school or district curriculum can lead to failure for so many students who simply learn differently. At the end of the year, when her mom came to visit, Yvette was bursting with pride as she sat down and read Clifford to her mother. Yvette's mom was in tears as she listened to her daughter read. It truly was a miracle.
The Power of Believing
Yvette had been diagnosed with MIMR (mild intellectual disability, formerly called "mildly mentally retarded"), and according to her IEP (Individualized Education Program), she would never learn to read. Her IEP goals and objectives were heartbreakingly limited—her only goal for the entire year was to learn thirteen letters of the alphabet. Nothing more. Nothing else was expected of her.
But it was Yvette's burning desire and our willingness to try something different that made all the difference in the world. "It can't be done." "She can't do it." "It's impossible." "She's retarded." "They will never read." "The books are too hard." I've heard all this nonsense over the past ten years, and these limiting beliefs prevent teachers from truly believing in their students. But Yvette's courage and determination have kept me from ever saying "they can't" or "they won't." When a second-grade student with an intellectual disability learns to read fluently in one year, it forever changes your attitude and expectations as an educator.
We spent that magical year laughing, smiling, hugging, and learning to read—and then reading to learn. Yvette taught me what believing in high expectations truly means for student outcomes. She showed me that with enough love, determination, and creative teaching, miracles happen in classrooms every single day.
She was my first reading teacher, and she taught me the most important lesson of all: never, ever give up on a child's dreams.
Appendix: The SFA Foundation That Made Yvette's Miracle Possible
Looking back on Yvette's remarkable journey, I realize now that her success wasn't just about determination and love—it was also made possible by the comprehensive literacy framework already in place at our school. We were fortunate to be an SFA (Success for All) school that also implemented Kagan cooperative learning strategies, giving us a classroom environment rich with research-based, ready-to-use resources that aligned perfectly with Yvette's learning needs.
The SFA Word Wall System: A Perfect Match
The SFA program's 48-section word wall system proved to be exactly what Yvette needed, even though I didn't fully understand its theoretical foundation at the time. The color-coded approach—with "green words" representing decodable, phonemically regular words and "red words" for high-frequency or irregular words requiring memorization—gave us a systematic way to approach her sight word learning.
While SFA doesn't publish exact counts of green versus red words across all 48 sections, the program's comprehensive coverage spans all major high-frequency word lists used in K–3 literacy instruction. The foundational SFA books extensively overlap with both Dolch (220 service words plus 95 noun words) and Fry (first 1000 words) lists, though they're original leveled texts rather than direct replications. This meant that as Yvette mastered her beloved Clifford vocabulary, she was simultaneously building a foundation that would serve her across all her reading experiences.
Built-In Phonemic Awareness and Best Practices
What I didn't realize as a first-year teacher was that SFA is built on best practice research and incorporates Orton-Gillingham methodology—the gold standard for teaching children how to read, especially those with learning differences like Yvette. The program's daily phonemic awareness instruction includes:
- Stretch and spell routines that help students break down words into component sounds
- Segmentation and phoneme isolation activities that build sound awareness
- Blending exercises that teach students to put sounds together
- Explicit instruction in both decodable and irregular word recognition
Even though Yvette struggled with traditional phonics rules, she was still benefiting from this embedded phonemic awareness instruction every single day through our SFA activities.
Songs, Cooperation, and Classroom-Ready Resources
The SFA program came complete with songs, chants, and engaging activities that made our four hours of daily reading instruction feel more like play than work. Combined with our school's Kagan cooperative learning approach, students were constantly interacting with words, sounds, and stories in multiple ways. The 48 foundational SFA books provided a structured progression that supported both phonemic awareness and sight word mastery simultaneously.
What felt like my creative decision to make "over seven hundred flashcards" was actually supported by a research-based framework that systematically exposes students to high-frequency vocabulary through multiple modalities. The songs we sang, the word wall words we practiced, and even the cooperative learning structures we used were all part of a comprehensive approach designed to meet students exactly where they were in their literacy development.
The Miracle Was Built Into the System
Yvette's success wasn't just about thinking "outside the box"—it was about having access to a literacy system sophisticated enough to support multiple pathways to reading success. SFA's integration of both decodable and sight word approaches, combined with daily phonemic awareness instruction and engaging, leveled texts, created an environment where a student like Yvette could thrive.
The miracle was that we had a classroom already equipped with research-based tools that could adapt to meet her unique learning profile. While her IEP suggested she could only learn thirteen letters in a year, the SFA framework provided the structure and resources that allowed her to far exceed those limited expectations.
Lessons for Today's Teachers
Understanding now what I wish I had known then, I realize that Yvette's story illustrates the power of comprehensive, research-based literacy instruction. The Success for All program, grounded in Orton-Gillingham principles and supported by cooperative learning strategies, provided the foundation that made her remarkable progress possible.
For teachers working with students who have learning differences, having access to systematic, multi-sensory approaches like SFA can make all the difference. The program's careful balance of phonemic awareness, sight word instruction, and engaging texts creates multiple pathways to reading success—ensuring that students like Yvette don't have to wait for us to figure out what works.
Her infectious smile and determination were certainly the driving forces behind her success, but having a classroom equipped with proven, research-based tools gave that determination the best possible chance to flourish into the reading miracle we witnessed together.
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