Teaching ELA With Heart, Tech, And Targeted Test Prep

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The energy of OKSTE buzzes in the background as we sit down with fifth grade ELA teacher Kari Damron from Sayre Elementary, and the conversation goes straight to the heart of classroom life. Kari paints a vivid picture of a pivotal year where kids step toward middle school, and ELA becomes the spine that supports both academic skills and character. She shares how a dependable “purple book” from American Book Company keeps standards clear, practice focused, and remediation surgical—without burying students in busywork or drowning teachers in choices.

Website: spotlight4success.com 

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:06):
Welcome to Spotlight for Success by American Book
Company.
Hi, I'm Devin Pintozi, yourhost.
We are here at the wonderful OKSTE.
This is the uh technologyconference in Oklahoma, and we
are so excited to be here inTulsa with Carrie Damron.

SPEAKER_02 (00:23):
Hi.
I'm excited to be on my firstever podcast.

SPEAKER_01 (00:26):
Yes, Carrie.

SPEAKER_02 (00:27):
And my first tech conference.

SPEAKER_01 (00:29):
So that's that's wonderful.
Uh Carrie joins us from SayreElementary.
Yeah.
Hi, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (00:34):
I'm Sayre Elementary.

SPEAKER_01 (00:36):
Wonderful.
I understand you're a fifthgrade teacher, is that right?

SPEAKER_02 (00:39):
Yes, I teach fifth grade uh ELA, so it's reading
and writing those skills.

SPEAKER_01 (00:45):
Oh, that's wonderful.
And uh so can you tell me a bit,Carrie, about what your
day-to-day is like in theschools.

SPEAKER_02 (00:52):
Um day to day, um in fifth grade we're
departmentalized, so I of courseonly teach ELA, and so we switch
from reading to math to you knowscience, social studies.
Um in fifth grade, we're kind ofgetting them ready to you know
start moving towards the middleschool, high school.
So uh as much as it is like youknow, book work and focusing on

(01:14):
those state standards, it'sthey're at that age that you
know you try to help them bepeople, and there's a lot of you
know character development, andthey are realizing they're
starting to be people, so it's alot of life lessons and kind of
teaching them how to be peoplealong the way.
So it's it's all you have to bewell rounded.

SPEAKER_00 (01:35):
Thank you for watching Spotlight for success.
I am David, the chief operatingofficer of American company.
We are located here in ourheadquarters in Winston,
Georgia.com.

(02:24):
We look forward to hearing fromyou.

SPEAKER_01 (02:28):
Well, thank you so much for being a uh an educator,
so involved with your studentsin the classroom.
Uh that's really wonderful.
Um, so I understand uh you usedAmerican Book Company materials.

SPEAKER_02 (02:41):
Uh yes, so I saw the ABC and I was like, I know that.
Where where do we know thatfrom?
And then I saw the books and Iwas like, oh my gosh, that is
like my that's my bread andbutter.
Um so I use it for all of ourtest prep.
That's like when we get the biguh big purple book out.
Is mine purple?
It's like a purplish red.

(03:01):
Then we know it's go time.
And I just I I love that bookbecause um it highlights those
state standards and then all thesubstandards, and it's just it's
put together really nicely andit's easy to follow and clear.
Sometimes you get too much, butit's it's just like just enough.

(03:22):
You know, you can pick andchoose what you kind of need to
do, which I I end up using allof it, but if you want to kind
of accommodate towards okay, youneed to write this, or if you
need to do it all together, butI also have some of the older
stuff, so when I need to kind ofmerge uh speakers coming in.

(03:45):
But um, if I need to remediatewith those um older copies that
I do have, it's so nice to have,and I kind of pieced together um
and just hit those highlightwhere we need to work on as
well.
So I love the book.
I was looking at it, I'm like,oh, that's nice and sharp and
clean.
Might have to take that one withme.
There you go.

SPEAKER_01 (04:05):
Absolutely.
Well, I'm glad they worked outso well for you, and I
understand that the scores werewere good.

SPEAKER_02 (04:10):
Yeah, so every year, and and I can see, you know, and
if if I take a greater emphasison one section or another, I
know that's where I need to, oh,I remember this part in the
book, or maybe I can, you know,highlight the parts I needed to
work on better.
Like I think one of mine waslike vocabulary side.
I like went back in for thisyear, made sure that all my my

(04:31):
work throughout this year, likemy pacing guide, that you know,
those were the words I used inmy review, like make sure I am
implementing those differentpractices to kind of help with
my stage force.

SPEAKER_01 (04:43):
Oh, that's wonderful.
I'm glad that uh really workedout for you.
And uh, do you have anythingyou're hoping to get out of this
conference to take back to yourteam?

SPEAKER_02 (04:53):
Oh gosh.
Um, so I I love to embrace thetechnology, and there's so many
like things with AI and stuff.
Um I love you know paper andpencil, but I also there's such
a you kind of have to merge thetwo of old fashioned and new.
You're just gonna have to doboth.
So I'm trying to be with it andup with everyone else, and I

(05:16):
don't know, just practice usingit because my kids are really
smart and they love to get ontheir devices and figure all
that out sometimes before me, soI gotta keep up with them or say
like a step ahead of them, butin an educational way.
So I'd be like, this is how weuse it correctly, this is how we
can use it for good, not Iwouldn't want to say evil, but

(05:38):
exactly.

SPEAKER_01 (05:39):
Exactly.
Um do you have anything you'dlike to share with the OKST
community?

SPEAKER_02 (05:45):
Um just don't be afraid of learning and growing
and keep moving forward and justto embrace it and don't um just
keep working.
I'm just glad I glad I gottacome.

SPEAKER_01 (05:58):
That's awesome.
So thank you so much.
This again, this is uh CarrieDamron.
Uh, thank you for joining us forSayre Elementary.
Appreciate you being with ustoday.

SPEAKER_02 (06:07):
Thank you so much.