SPIRE Reading and Language Development

I’ve heard teachers refer to using it, as a reading program in the Orton-Gillingham family. I looked pretty hard for more info on it & couldn’t find it; I figure it’s like the O-G program at my school that’s pretty much an in-house program and while the materials are sold and workshops are given locally in using it, it’s not mass produced.

Why do you ask?

My district is offering ‘SPIRE training’ for two days in July and I can find no information about it other than the short letter sent out by our district.
As you probably know, some training is worthwhile and some is not. I don’t want to miss good training, but don’t want to waste two days on something that will not benefit me or my students.

Hello! I don’t have any personal experience with this program yet but do know that S.P.I.R.E. stands for (Specialized Program Individualizing Reading Excellence)

The author of the program is Shelia Clark-Edmands, M.S.Ed.and the company is called Progress Learning, Inc. I believe that she is somewhere in Maine.

I am looking forward to hearing her speak at the Illinois IDA conference this fall. So for now, that’s all I know! Good Luck! ~Sherry

If it were me, I’d go. THe teachers who posted about it knew a lot — some of it probably came from that training ;) But I’ve grown to like O-G and some people don’t.

I attended the training and it was the best two day inservice I have attended in years! It is great for teachers looking for a direction for their reading and spelling instruction. Sheila Clark-Edmands presented in Fruitport, MI. The program, S.P.I.R.E., specialized program individualizing reading excellence, predicts and prevents reading failure. There is a strong emphasis on phonemic awareness and the methodology needed for implementation of the S.P.I.R.E. program is taught in the two days with a training manual provided. VERY user friendly and worth looking into.
The address is: Progress Learning, Inc.
P.O. Box 545 Kennebunk, ME 04043
Phone/Fax 207-985-3878

Hello,
I did attend S.P.I.R.E. training. It was very good, the best I have attended. Very heavily influenced by O-G. See my earlier post for the address.