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No. 12-ranked SWCC men gained their 10th-straight win at home Wednesday night over Marshalltown, 91-69. More on how the Spartans improved to 12-2 on page 7A.
Fifty years ago, Walt Disney’s “Old Yeller” was showing at The Strand in Creston. Cost for admission was 85 cents for adults and 50 cents for children. More Throwback news on 2A. >>
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Day in the life with Shelley Carter ■ Shelley Carter, a teacher at The Learning Center of Southwest Iowa in Creston, offers individualized reading and math help to students who learn differently.
“Working one-on-one, you can teach them so much. You see a lot of progress quicker than in a bigger classroom.” — Jodi Paup
Part-time teacher at The Learning Center
By KELSEY HAUGEN CNA staff reporter
khaugen@crestonnews.com
Second-grader Ethan Holliday arranges colorful letter tiles to spell words for Shelley Carter, a teacher at The Learning Center of Southwest Iowa (TLC), and misspells the word “predict.” “Instead of a ‘k,’ let’s use the other letter than makes that sound,” Carter says. Ethan switches it out for a “c” tile, then adds a “t” on the end. “Good job! Way to fix it!” Carter says to Ethan, then gives him a high-five. Encouragement is key at TLC, where staff members believe all children are capable of learning. Some simply learn differently. “A lot of it’s about confidence,” Carter said. “At first, they’re kind of timid when they come in. But then, they gain confidence. None of the kids are upset they come here – they like it.” TLC is a nonprofit in Creston that aims to provide students with learning differences – anything from difficulty concentrating or understanding certain material to a learning disability
CNA photos by KELSEY HAUGEN
ABOVE: Shelley Carter, a teacher at The Learning Center of Southwest Iowa (TLC), does phonics activities with Ethan Holliday, a second-grader at Creston Elementary, Monday evening at TLC. For video of Ethan playing a bowling subtraction game with Carter, visit crestonnews.com. BOTTOM LEFT:Owen Allen, a fourth-grader at St. Malachy, reads aloud during a lesson with Shelley Carter at The Learning Center of Southwest Iowa (TLC).
– supplemental, research-based services to help them become lifelong learners. Help is offered in reading and math, with the goal of bringing students to perform at grade level in both subjects. While Carter helps students with both subjects, she prefers reading, as she has a bachelor’s degree from Northwest Missouri State University in reading and reading recovery. She started teaching at Bridgewater-Fontanelle Community School, then worked in Des
Moines and taught reading recovery and kindergarten at Windsor Elementary School for 34 years. After taking early retirement, Carter moved to Creston. She was hired at TLC in August and now teaches there during after-school hours Monday through Friday. Some days, she substitute teaches at Creston Elementary or St. Malachy schools before heading to TLC, essentially teaching for more than 10 hours those days.
Individualized help Many TLC students come in at least three days per week, usually for an hour each day. Most sessions are one-on-one, but Carter said she sometimes has to double up students who are on similar learning levels in order to get all the students in during the week. “Working one-on-one, you can teach them so much,” said Jodi Paup, a part-time TLC teacher. “You see a lot of progress quicker than in a bigger classroom.”
The teaching is also individualized in that each student has his or her own curriculum. When students come to TLC, they are tested to determine their level of learning, and then a curriculum is created based on those results. Right now, TLC helps students through eighth grade, though Carter said they hope to bring in high school teachers at some point.
Reading On Monday afternoon, Ethan was Carter’s first student. Ethan needs extra help with both reading and math, so Carter spent only the first half of their hourlong session doing reading activities with him. “There are a lot of rules that teach them how to spell a word or how to decode it,” Carter said. “They like movement, so when they use the tiles, it’s easier for them to (physically) make a word than it is if I ask them to write a word.” One of their activities was distinguishing “long” from “short” vowels.
President to sign education law rewrite WASHINGTON (AP) — With his signature Thursday, President Barack Obama is setting the nation’s public schools on a sweeping new course of accountability that will change the way teachers are evaluated and how the poorest performing schools are pushed to improve. Obama will sign a bipartisan bill that easily passed the Senate on Wednesday
After working on reading with Ethan, Carter began helping him with math. She pulled out a sheet of paper with pictures of dominoes on it. “We’re trying to get students to visualize what these numbers are,” Carter said. “When they look at these (images) of numbers, we hope they will start transferring it back to their classrooms when they’re doing math.” Once a student progresses through a book in his curriculum, he or she earns a certificate that is hung up with his picture in the hallway at TLC. CARTER | 2A
Dan Albrechtsen of Creston digs in for a helping of cheesy potatoes at the Creston Chamber of Commerce and Union County Development Association holiday open house Wednesday at their office at 208 W. Taylor St. Albrechtsen, who works at Rieman Music in Creston, enjoyed the full spread of soups, snacks and desserts available.
and the House last week — long-awaited legislation that would replace the landmark No Child Left Behind education law of 2002, now widely viewed as unworkable and overreaching. One key feature of No Child remains: Students will still take the federally required statewide reading and math
CNA photo by KYLE WILSON
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“For the word ‘prong,’ is that a long or short ‘o’?” Carter asked Ethan. “Short,” he responded. “Very good!” Carter said. For reading, TLC uses Really Great Reading Company activities and Susan Barton reading and spelling curriculum. After tile activities, Carter did timed reading activities with Ethan to test his accuracy and words per minute. “We try to keep students assessed, so I will time a student to see how much he can read, mark where he left off and keep a running record,” Carter said. “Then, in the office, we have norms that we compare results to, and it gives us a percentile. So, the next time we test him, we’ll be able to see his improvement.” While the timer is often intimidating the first time a student does a reading test with Carter, she said they get used to it quickly and actually enjoy trying to improve their performance.
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