Second Grade

When Laura was in the second grade her teacher was Mrs. Castelluccio. As you can imagine, this long name was a challenge for the young students to learn to spell correctly. I recall that Laura was worried about being able to remember the spelling. She was somewhat frustrated by how hard her teacher's name was to spell and was determined to get it right. I tried to help Laura by breaking the name up into parts, focusing syllable by syllable, or coming up with a clever mnemonic to aid her in remembering. But nothing was working.

Then the proverbial light bulb turned on and I began singing the tune to "Old MacDonald had a farm, e-i-e-i-o" substituting the letters in Mrs. Castelluccio's name. In an instant Laura had the spelling down pat, never to be forgotten.

The next day Laura was happy to report that she could easily spell her teacher's name and that Mrs. Castelluccio was pleased. But there was more to the story, as I learned later.

Some time afterwards I attended a parent-teacher conference with Mrs. Castelluccio and Laura. Mrs. C, as she was popularly known, praised Laura's ability and intelligence, making special mention that Laura was the first in the entire class to learn to spell her name correctly. I assumed that Laura had told Mrs. Castelluccion about using old MacDonald to learn the spelling, but as it turned out Laura had been too shy to share her secret!

Mrs. Castelluccio was delighted to learn Laura's method and vowed to use it with all her future classes. She thanked Laura for sharing such an easy and clever approach.

Laura was a favorite student of her second grade teacher, and not just because of learning to spell the difficult name. Laura brought a dedication and commitment to the classroom, and also demonstrated a real concern for her fellow students that made her stand out. Mrs. C loved you, Laura. And so do I.