Our guest post for our Teacher of the Year nominee, Franklin Burns.

Lyn Harduin shares her wonderful story of how Franklin Burns helped her daughter to read. QuickSchools is a fully online school management system.

I have a daughter with autism and she struggles with comprehension and understanding text. When she reads a sentence I would take the book away immediately and I would ask her a question. For example she would read a sentence very similar to this one, The cat crossed the road. I would ask her who crossed the road and my daughter would look at me and tell me “I don’t know.”

I was very concerned because the point of reading is to learn and if words are just words then there is not a point in reading. I met with Frank at the open house in December of 2011. We spoke about different teaching methods and the ways he could improve my daughters reading. I wasn’t ready to pull my daughter out of the private school that she is attending but I felt good about the school. My husband and I wrote a nice donation to the school. Three months had past and I still remember our conversation during the open house. I hired Frank as my daughter’s tutor once a week. From the first session he was able to engage my daughter in the learning process. He was able to connect with my daughter. I heard my daughter laughing and having fun. The nice thing about Frank is he is open to new ideas and methods. I bought him a reading program for students with dyslexia and he was happy to implement the new reading program during the tutoring sessions. Frank is able to pick out a book at my daughter reading level and create a fun lesson that is engaging for my daughter. Since my daughter has autism  and she is a visual learner. He is able to make lessons with visuals that assist my daughter with her comprehension. I have seen a great improvement with my daughter answering “WH” questions over the past month. I am able to read her a passage and then ask her a question and she is able to answer me. I believe Mr. Burns should be teacher of the year because he is a wonderful teacher that goes the extra mile for his students.

Lyn Harduin

Stay tuned to find out who the winner of the Teacher of the Year 2012 is.