Wilson® Dyslexia Practitioner (W.D.P.) Holly Keple, a first-grade Fundations® teacher at a public elementary school in New Jersey, shares how the love of teaching spans generations in her family. In Holly’s words:
“I have always wanted to become a teacher ever since I was a little girl. My great-grandmother Gertie was the first to influence me, as she lived with us in our home and shared many of her lessons and handmade books with me. She was a special education assistant who not only passed down the love of teaching to my mother, but also instilled the passion in me.
I lived in a home where education came first. My mother, Wilson® Dyslexia Therapist (W.D.T.) Kim Frank, worked as a speech and language specialist for 33 years and said over and over, ‘My professional career shot to the moon once I became Wilson certified!’ My mother and her friends were all educators, and their lively conversations appeared to be always focused on finding a solution to help each child learn.
An education major in college, I would come home to visit and frequently found my mother tutoring a student using the Wilson Reading System® (WRS). I saw firsthand the improvement being made not only in reading, but also in spelling, comprehension, and vocabulary. I knew that in order to be the best that I could be as a classroom teacher, I needed to be an expert in teaching reading to all my students. I knew I could be much more effective in the classroom by learning the explicit, multisensory, systematic approach in breaking the code for reading.
As a first-grade teacher using Fundations, I am always eager to talk about my students’ experiences. In all my years of teaching, I have seen a common thread that runs through each student who participates in Fundations ‒ a sense of pride, urgency to learn the next rule, improved confidence as a learner, increased vocabulary knowledge, and the need to find a book and read it!
My daughter Emma’s exposure to Wilson greatly impacted her ability to fluently read at the age of 5. She wants to be a teacher just like us! Having WRS and Fundations materials accessible to her gave her the ability to recite the quick drill, including digraphs, before entering kindergarten. There were many times when Emma would insist on sky writing each letter of the alphabet with my mother as she named the letter/sound and keyword.
As parents, my husband and I chose to move to a school district that embraces Fundations, and where Emma can continue to be immersed in the program on a daily basis with her classroom teacher. Her love of reading is now shared with our 2 year old, Sophia, who loves to pile books high and sit and turn pages as she verbalizes her thoughts aloud.
Emma has witnessed many WRS sessions growing up, as she would sit quietly in the room and just listen and watch my mother work. During one session, my mother relayed to me that Emma cheerily called out, ‘tap it, you can do it, scoop it, great job, high five!’ “