Judy Lalli

My Favorite Teaching Moment

I was teaching a first-grade class of low achievers, nonreaders. We called the class "junior first" at the time. I was using a variety of methods to teach reading, including phonics, language experience, and sight words (the same combination I use to this day.) One day in February, a girl named Sheila, who knew the word "sun" as a sight word, sounded out s-u-n and realized it spelled "sun," the word she already knew. She made the connection, and she shouted, "Now I know why s-u-n spells sun!" It was a wonderful moment as it all fell together for her. It reminded me of the scene in The Miracle Worker when Annie Sullivan gets Helen Keller to make the connection that the letters w-a-t-e-r that she had been spelling into her hand symbolized the water that she was feeling on her face from the water pump. At that moment, speech and language opened a new world for her. That's what I felt was happening to Sheila when she unlocked the key to reading.

Why I Love Teaching PLS Courses

I love teaching because I love to learn. The more I teach, the more I learn. I refine my skills every day, and I learn something new every day. It is so much fun to share that excitement with my students that I feel extremely lucky to have such a wonderful job. I can't imagine doing anything else. The PLS courses I have taken dramatically changed the way I teach. I have said many times that at least once a day in the classroom I am aware of an "Aha!" moment, as I notice that I have just used a skill from a PLS course. I loved taking the courses, I love using the skills, and I love sharing the philosophy and practical techniques of the courses with other teachers.

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