Welcome to the Stable Reading Blog!

The Stable Reading blog is intended to share my experiences as a reading teacher with real children, in real classrooms, with real books, and real conversations. The stories represented here are the stories of children who desperately want to be readers, but who are caught in a web of confusion, frustration, contradictions, desperation, and depression, none of which is invited nor welcomed.
 
With a gestalt mindset and using gestalt methodology during my lessons, I began to recognize the immense amount of pain children hold and manage inside their small statures.  It is the pain of grief and despair, of feeling as though something will never be reached or attained. 
 
I soon realized that I had found my purpose—to move children through the emotions and blockages that keep them from becoming successful readers and to do so using a blend of sound reading instruction, gestalt coaching and play therapy.
 
While there are many opinions about reading curriculums and how reading is taught in schools, that is not the focus of this blog.  The goal is to go deeper, and by doing so, give parents, educators, administrators and interested others a greater awareness and understanding of the psychological and emotional roller-coaster that can derail beginning readers.

Ultimately, my goal is to shed some light on the conflicts facing young readers, especially those who have experienced being misunderstood, misdiagnosed, mismanaged, and mistreated under the guise of reading curriculums and achievement measures.

How do we view children who struggle with learning to read?  What thoughts enter our mind about the potential progress, or lack thereof, for a particular child?  What judgements are already in place?
 
And most importantly, what interventions will take place to move a child out of a reactionary state to one of ease and confidence?  Is this even possible?
 
And, I love horses! Becoming certified in Equine Gestalt Coaching and Gestalt Play Therapy after retiring has made a huge impact on my life as an individual, but I had no idea how it would ultimately influence me as a teacher of reading.
 
I hope to give the Stable Reading audience an understanding of my current work as a gestalt coach and how that work relates to, or influences, reading achievement.
 
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Read On!
Warmly,
Sharon Bibeau