My name is Jean Geddes Schaber. I spent ten years at The Reading Laboratory in Portland, Oregon where I discovered the great love of sharing space and time with reading students. I began my career providing vocabulary for their published works. That involved going through Webster’s unabridged dictionary page by page from which I usurped over four thousand singled-syllabled words. This list is available in my book, Where Is That Vowel?
Then I was trained to work with a small group of primary students utilizing those words. Years later I accompanied Dr. Fred Aston as we held in-service classes for teachers in the area. We also contracted to work within Prescott Elementary School in the Parkrose District where we trained thirty mothers and eight high school students to work with students grades one through six with basic phonics as well as intensive comprehension skills. During this time I compiled the text for A Reading Tutor’s Toolkit.
After The Reading Laboratory I continued to tutor students within various primary schools, but my emphasis is now on providing texts for classroom teachers and tutors as well as home-schoolers.
