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Casey's problem was that he was in the seventh grade and had not yet learned to read. That is, until his teacher taught him the "tell it, tape it, type it, and read-it-aloud" method.
California Kids Can Read and Write! is a book containing two separate educational programs, useful for all ages, and includes the following:
Part I: Kids Can Read!
Basic Sight Words - Eight stories about imagined experiences for which Chuck Dowdle's grandchildren were the inspiration. All eight stories draw heavily from basic sight words.
Sounds and Spellings - Forty-six stories, each emphasizing a single or combined sound of English and the different ways each sound may be spelled. Gradually, a child learns that a sound may have more than one spelling, and reading becomes less challenging.
Reading to Learn - Reading methods like the one Casey learned, as well as some of the author's thoughts about language and life.
Part II: Kids Can Write! promotes the natural growth and development of written language skills by helping students master the different forms of dramatic, narrative, expository, and poetic writing. Designed for students of all ages, it consists of thirty-one sequenced assignments and quality student samples that demonstrate the value of the program.
About the author
Chuck Dowdle was born in Crookston, Minnesota. While attending college on the GI bill, Dowdle married his former Cathedral High School friend and classmate, Marilyn "Marty" Kirkwood. Dowdle graduated from St. John's University at Collegeville, Minnesota in 1952. Five daughters, an MA in Secondary Education, and thirty-six years later, Dowdle retired from teaching English in Santa Rosa, California. After his wife of forty-nine years died of ovarian cancer, he married her close high school friend, Carmelle Johnson Matthes. They lived happily in Cambria, California for twenty-two years until her death in 2023.
