When did you fall in love with reading? As a young girl in elementary school, I fell in love with reading in the fourth grade. Unbeknownst to me, the groundwork for my affliction was laid down a few years before I arrived in Mrs. Naugle’s classroom.
Eight years before I became her student, our local school system’s trustees designated my future elementary school, Stalker, to be the pilot school in “developing all educational materials for a continuous progress program of instruction.”
Three years later, in 1968, my soon-to-be fourth-grade teacher, along with other staff members, visited model schools in Florida, along the East Coast, and Chicago. Mrs. Naugle was particularly smitten with the Melbourne, Florida model.
The model chosen was based on continuous progress through material developed by the teachers. As students, we worked through the Stalker teaching activity packets or “STAS” at our own pace. We were tested and evaluated then placed in the correct STAS to start our program of study. In 1971, Mrs. Naugle received a national education honor for her work in this project.
A few years later, I landed in her class. I was a good student working my way through the packets. I particularly enjoyed finishing all the packets in my grade before the end of the school year. The reward was, of course, more packets, but they were packets from the next grade, which seemed a bit like being a time traveler to my young mind.
Mrs. Naugle encouraged her students to go beyond the packets by offering a reading program in her class. Whoever read the most books during the school year would have their name engraved on a plaque that hung in the hallway right outside our door. I wanted my name on that plaque. I took the bait hook, line, and sinker. I began reading whatever I could get my hands on.
We could read any book we chose. The catch? We had to give a verbal book report to Mrs. Naugle as proof we had read it. I distinctly remember Mrs. Naugle leaning back in her chair, holding my book I’d picked up from the public library, Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, in her lap. She flipped through the pages while I struggled to explain some of the scenes of the book, scenes that dealt with a lot of preteen topics, such as bust size and menstruation. She never looked up from the book, only nodded and gave me assuring “uh-huhs” while I stumbled through the plot.
I got my name on that plaque.
A few years after Mrs. Naugle’s Reading Award, I appeared in a local newspaper article about our public library’s new kid’s reading club during Children’s Book Week. That’s me on the left, and fellow Stalker reader Greg Tardy, kneeling.
Thank you, Mrs. Naugle, for encouraging my love of reading at an early age. Our paths crossed again when you were 96 and I was a empty nester. For a year, I visited your home once or twice a month with books you might enjoy from the library. We talked about reading and the importance of education. On my last visit, I brought my youngest who was in town for a few weeks before heading back to college in NYC. You made a big fuss over him. As we turned to leave, you kissed his cheek. Beaming, you said, “I kissed a boy who goes to Columbia.”
A few weeks later, I knocked on your front door and a stranger answered. He was cleaning out your things. He asked me if I wanted anything. I declined. You already gave me so much.
You are gone from this world, but you have left a legacy of readers in our town whose love of reading will be passed down for generations to come.
All photos courtesy of The Times-Mail. Additional references below.
“Continuous Progress Program New Approach at Stalker.” The Times-Mail, Nov. 10, 1969, p. 1, Bedford, IN.
“Mrs. Naugle Receives National Education Honor.” The Times-Mail, Sept. 13, 1971, p. 1, Bedford, IN.
Oh, Carol–this is beautifully written! I LOVE it–many thanks for sharing!
This is beautifully written, Carol. Mrs. Naugle would be so pleased.