College of Education senior Marie Spear of Naperville, Ill., will receive an Outstanding Future Teacher Award from the Indiana State Reading Association (ISRA) at the association’s annual conference in March.
Professor of Education Deborah Corpus said COE faculty nominated Spear unanimously based on her academic achievements. Spear more than met nomination requirements, which include an overall GPA of 3.2 or better and at least 12 credit hours and 3.0 GPA in reading methods class.“She has A’s in all those classes,” Corpus said. “Most importantly, she has support and recommendation from all her professors.”Set to graduate in May 2011, Spear is majoring in Early and Middle Childhood Education. She will have additions to her license in Mild Interventions (special education) and Reading Teacher.Spear said reading classes have been some of her favorite education experiences at Butler. “I have learned so many instructional strategies, motivational strategies and a wide variety of children’s literature,” she said. She student-taught full-day kindergarten at Amy Beverland Early Learning Center in Lawrence Township and is currently at West Clay Elementary School in Carmel Clay School District in a fourth-grade classroom. (See Collegian Online feature on Spear.)“My heart really goes out to children who are struggling readers.Working with them just sticks with me so deeply,” she said. Spear developed and operates Summer Strides Tutoring, a personal tutoring business. Over the past three years, she has tutored 17 different children grades K-8 and a young adult with special needs. She also volunteers in elementary school classrooms in Indianapolis and Naperville and has organized book, clothing and food drives for students in need.At Butler, she has also been active in Kappa Delta Pi education honor society, Mortar Board senior honors society and the Council for Exceptional Children. She helped co-found the council with other education majors and is its current vice president. Through Butler’s Big Brothers, Big Sisters chapter, Spear has mentored an elementary-aged girl for four year. She also has served as the group’s creative consultant***Deborah Corpus and Ann Giddings, a teacher with Lebanon Community Schools, will offer a workshop on reading in the content areas at the ISRA conference. They are coauthors of the teachers guide Planning & Managing Effective Reading Instruction Across the Content Areas (Scholastic 2010).
Media contact: Mary Ellen Stephenson(317) 940-6944(765) 481-8917 – cellmestephe@butler.edu
