Lois Letchford, The Lincoln Project - Struggling to Learn

5 Aug 2020 · 3 min

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In this brief video, author and parent Lois Letchford recounts how her six‑year‑old son struggled with first‑grade spelling. She describes using differentiated instruction—starting with simple, rhyming words—and supplementing it with hands‑on clay activities conducted outdoors. Over several afternoons, this approach helped her son master the first ten spelling words, as evidenced by his grade‑1 spelling test where he correctly wrote words like "cat" and "hat" and retained the learned letters. Lois frames this as the first step in a longer, challenging journey from being at the bottom of his class to achieving academic growth, and invites viewers to follow her parenting and learning journey.

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Hello, I'm Lois Letchford, author of the book Reversed: A Memoir, talking about slow to learn, slow to forget, commonly titled the Lincoln Project. As I said yesterday, my son failed first grade and he was given spelling words that differentiated the instructions so that he was allowed to learn. The spelling words were the simplest ones for a second grade child. The rhyming words. The rhyming words met his needs, which was significant. When I saw my son sitting at the table unable to write the simplest of letters and sort out the word cat or hat, I had to stop and think. There was no use saying anything to him because he was working at maximum capacity. And something in my mind clicked and said, Lois, get clay, take him outside and work with clay. That was incredibly significant because there's my 6-year-old son who then worked with me for an hour to an hour and a half, not only that afternoon but every afternoon for the next 4 nights to help him learn those first 10 spelling words. It was differentiation of instruction and it allowed him to shine on the level where he could show growth. That was step 1 in this incredibly long, incredibly hard journey to help us go from the bottom of the class to the top of the academic tree. He was slow to learn. And he was also incredibly slow to forget. Once it stuck, it was there. And here I have, believe it or not, my son's test from grade 1. His spelling words. He— you can see the at that he had still had that /t/. At. And the cat and the hat he got right. But the next week, the following week, We're doing the same activities and he is learning. That's the first step, that they can do something. Thank you. Hit like, hit subscribe, and follow my learning journey as a parent of a child who struggled and then succeeded.