About the Author

Born on a farm in the Midwest, I received the first years of my education in a small rural school in Webster County, Nebraska, where very small class sizes were the norm. In 1956, after graduating from Washington High School at Red Cloud, Nebraska, and then earning 12 hours of college credit in Education at Kearney State College, Kearney, Nebraska, my career began teaching children in a rural school at the age of seventeen. Later, I completed my B. A. in Education at Kearney State College.

I married Darrel Weber and moved to St. Francis, Kansas where I reared two children, Janice and Darrel Lynn. During this time, I continued Education courses for graduate credit at Fort Hays State University, Hays, Kansas, and continued teaching school at the elementary and junior high levels until I retired in 1998 with over forty years of teaching experience.

My belief is that children can become whoever they want to be in the United States of America if they learn to read well. Reading is the basis of every aspect of life, especially in our technological world.

Aside from teaching, my other interests include reading, sight-seeing, gardening, glass etching, rock carving, visiting with friends and former students, and attending family affairs.

As an elementary school teacher, I have taught very bright students as well as students who are academically slow. I have been a Title I reading and math teacher for the past several years, where I was allowed to individualize instruction to a maximum. I have come to realize that a student's most valuable reading tool is a strong phonetic background.

I did considerable research and experimentation with many different phonics programs, including McGuffey's New Eclectic Spelling Book (1865), Why Johnny Can't Read-And What You Can Do About It (1955), Hooked On Phonics (1992), and many other phonics programs which are currently being used in elementary schools across the nation. I believe that many phonics programs are excellent teaching tools, but I could find none that adequately teaches phonics to all students with a wide range of learning styles and abilities. Therefore, as a certified teacher with a B. A. degree in Elementary Education, I felt compelled to write a developmental phonics program to do just that!

The only prerequisites required of a student to utilize the Lightning Phonics Program are an English conversation vocabulary, the ability to recognize consonant and vowel letters, a trained certified teacher who is willing to spend up to one minute daily listening to each student pronounce words phonetically, and a teacher's genuine desire to develop the mind through reading.

Elizabeth C. Weber

Acknowledgments

A special thanks to my college instructor Dr. Robert Jennings of Fort Hays State University, Hays, Kansas, for giving me a better knowledge of word decoding through phonics in the graduate class Teaching of Reading. By taking this class, I gained an understanding of how phonics really works for a reader's advantage.

Thanks, also, to my fellow reading teachers who have used this phonics program: Kimberly Queen, St. Francis, KS, Judy Raile, St. Francis, KS, Joyce Faulkender, St. Francis, KS, Rebecca McAtee, St. Francis, KS, Peggy Pollock, Pleasant Valley, MO, and Warri Scott, Hillrose, CO. They recommend that it be taught to other students across the United States.

I am grateful, too, to all my former students who learned to read more proficiently using this phonics program, which I tailored to meet their needs.