Laraine Flemming, Ph.D.

e-mail: laflemm@attglobal.net
fax: (203) 484-0711

Teaching Experience

In my twenty-year career teaching reading, I have taught a wide variety of students. I started out teaching reading at a place called Eastern State Hospital in Vinita, Oklahoma. My students varied in age from fifteen to forty- five, and most of them had serious emotional problems, ranging from mood disorders to psychotic episodes. It was my job to teach them everything from home economics to geography. Odd as it may seem, it was in Vinita that I first grasped how important teaching reading really was. Whether as solace or distraction, reading helped my students manage an extraordinarily bleak world almost totally devoid of pleasure or joy. When they read, they felt better, and I felt like I was accomplishing something really worth doing. It was a great introduction to being a reading teacher.

In the years following Vinita, I have taught every kind of student, from elementary school children thrilled about learning to read, to terrified adults embarrassed to admit that they can't make sense out of their local newspaper. Most of my experience, however, has been with community-college students who make up the audience for my textbooks. Each time I write a book or teach a course, I come up with new ideas about the best way to teach reading to college students struggling with textbook assignments.

Last update of this page: February 26, 2005

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