About the Author

Hi, Im Paul Lamarre. I have a B.A., B.Ed from Western Washington University in French/Speech, graduate coursework at the M.A. level at the University of Washington. I was awarded a Ph.D. in Reading Education by the University of Georgia. Ive taught French, English, Aboriginal Education, Gifted Education, and Special Education at every level from Kindergarten to university in Canada and the US. One year, I was a Remedial Reading/Learning Assistance specialist. September, 11 out of 16 first graders trooped into my class. Anxiety and concern etched on their faces. They were in THAT class! They couldnt recite the alphabet. Drilling the alphabet for 30 minutes was unacceptable. Repeating the same process and expecting a different result was insane. I was reminded of my son Greg, in Kindergarten the year before. He used a very basic booklet with a single page for each letter. Each page showed an upper case and a lower case letter. The upper case letter showed an animal using the form of the capital letter: A was an ape; B was a bear and so. At the bottom was a real sentence: Annie Ape ate apples to Zeke Zebra zips zippers. Using this simple, elegant tool, Greg had to read on his own. I decided to use similar material. The students learned the letters and memorized the sentences. When asked the animals name, they answered correctly. When shown the picture, they remembered the letter story sentence. By the time we had worked our way through the booklet, all 11 children could recite all 26 letter stories - from memory. They remembered 104 words, in sequence. In just five months of daily classes, nine out of the 11 graduated from the special education class. The 10th and 11th students eventually learned all 104 words in sequence. Most astounding: over the next 5 years, none of the eleven graduates ever returned to my Remedial/Learning class! What have I learned? My theories were proven true and formed the basis of my beliefs about how young children learn: I believe: 1.every child can learn to think. 2.every child can learn how to learn. 3.learning how to learn is the best preparation for an unknown future. 4.with the right approach any child can learn to read easily. 5.parents play a vital role in a childs preparation for Grade 1. 6.a parent neednt worry about not having teacher training. The skills in Annie Ape are the building blocks not only to reading, but other essential life skills: to spatial orientation, to reasoning, and to arithmetic.