The Tom Sawyer Effect | Don Johnston Assistive Technology

LeaderLink - November 2011

Mary Jo Barry I've had the pleasure of reading hundreds of stories from teachers and students. I recently received one from Patricia Campbell that really stands out! She created a simple formula to implement Start-to-Finish in her resource room/special day class. In it she paints a vivid picture of her students becoming enthralled with reading. After you read her story, you can download Patricia's step-by-step implementation plan and our interview with her!

~Mary Jo Barry

The Tom Sawyer Effect
by Patricia Campbell

As teachers, we yearn for our students to be passionate about reading and learning. That's why we got into education, right? But, how often do our students readily ask to read? After teaching for over a decade, I have found a few strategies that instill the passion that we seek. I have personally witnessed students in my special day classroom responding to the curriculum with excitement accuracy and retention with a few tips from Tom Sawyer.

You may ask, what has Tom Sawyer to do with this?

Tom Sawyer got his friends to complete his chore of painting a fence by cleverly positioning the task as being fun (his friends even give him small treasures for the privilege of getting a chance to paint the fence). My class of students perceived reading as the chore, but after the first few chapters of a Start-to-Finish book, their perceptions changed. They were successful and so reading became the privilege they sought. They were like Tom's friends after becoming engrossed in their work.

Frankly, Start-to Finish books have made reading so enjoyable for my students, I feel I'm duping my students into learning. They expect learning to be painful, and yet each day one of my students invariably asks, "Are we going to read today"? And although we read many types of books, I know they're referring to the Start-to-Finish books. We read, discuss, and answer questions huddled together on the rug. They come forward to listen and read with little invitation. Even the hard-to-reach students are captivated by the engaging narration. When we finish the end of chapter comprehension quizzes with a democratically attained 90-100%, there are high-fives all around.

My students actively participate in their learning, and the effect is infectious! Even my most struggling readers jump at the chance to sit in my chair and mimic a foreign accent they hear the stories.

Their learning doesn't cease with the ending of the story. By using Co:Writer, Read:OutLoud, and Write:OutLoud with the Start-to-Finish books, students are able to write sentences and paragraphs using word prediction software that helps them spell the vocabulary words from the novels. My dysgraphic students have become writers, writing in minutes what took them an hour to write before.

Like Tom Sawyer, I have bamboozled my students into learning!

Sincerely Successful,

Patricia Campbell
Special Day Teacher
Herbert Slater Middle School
Santa Rosa, CA

PS I wrote up my plan for using Start-to-Finish books in my classroom. You can get it here.

Introducing...Start-to-Finish Library
Classroom Collection!

Want to try Start-to-Finish in your special ed classrooms? We have a new Classroom Collection license that gives you everything you need to instill a passion for reading at school and at home!

Take home rights for ALL the students in your class or resource room
Our 10 most popular retold classics titles
Teacher's resource CD—printable books, graphics, vocabulary lists, worksheets, assessment
Reading instruction guide—Includes modeled implementation and four sample lessons

Cost per Classroom: Just $399 for all ten titles
Item Code: STFLCLSL1R

Request a quote now

November 2011

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Start-to-Finish Book is online!