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 The
seeds for Read It Once Again were planted fourteen years ago when Rae
Schaper became involved in a public school preschool program. Out of need,
she had to develop her own curriculum for the classroom. After some trial
and error, she found that students responded to consistency and repetition
as she read classic preschool literature to them. Using that experience, she
developed her curriculums around popular children’s books. Rae also had a
problem with lack of parent or guardian involvement, which included reading
to their children. By focusing all classroom learning on one book at a time,
she discovered that her children were better able to learn basic academic
concepts and enjoyed memorizing words or phrases from the story.
At the conclusion of each unit, the child was given their own personal copy
of the book to take home. She found that the child insisted that parents
read the story with them. Read It Once Again is successful because the
interest in reading is generated by the child. Adding a familiar book at the
end of each month sustained the motivation. Results were amazing.
Other teachers became aware of her methods and success in the classroom and
started requesting copies of the curriculums. Over the past seven years, she
has completed 29 different literary units and has customers throughout the
country.
Rae graduated with a BS in Special Education from the University of
Wisconsin in 1974. She taught preschool special education in Wisconsin for
several years before moving to South Carolina in 1993. After moving, she
pioneered an early childhood special education program in Spartanburg
County. In 1996 she completed her masters degree in Early Childhood
Education from the University of South Carolina, Spartanburg.
In 1998, Rae traded the preschool setting to teach Curriculum, Assessment,
and Elementary Literature classes to undergraduates at Presbyterian College
in Clinton, South Carolina. Rae also taught Early Childhood Special
Education Curriculum classes at a graduate level at Converse College in
Spartanburg South Carolina. During that time, she also began providing
consultation and teacher curriculum training in public and private schools.
In 2000, Rae began writing literary units fulltime. Today she continues to
provide teacher training along with writing. She lives in Inman, South
Carolina with her husband.
A key component of our staff is Gayle Chastain. In 2000, Gayle joined Rae as
a graphic artist and assistant. Gayle had been a teaching assistant with Rae
in the preschool classroom. She was already familiar with the theory behind
creating literary curriculums, so the talents were a natural blend. When
they are on the road as a vendor, Gayle will often dress as Mother Goose or
a storybook character to add spice to the vendor’s booth.
Our mission is to provide a comprehensive curriculum that promotes and
establishes an early literacy based foundation for the development of basic
skills including cognitive, fine motor, gross motor, speech, adaptive
skills, and socialization. Read It Once Again will also provide the educator
with student goals and objectives based on developmental milestones with
structure and rational. The curriculum engages the parent/guardian in the
education process and fosters the communication process between the home and
school.
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