1. Interview with a Val-pire
By Wyatt Hall, with the great help of Valerie Sheridan
Comer
ED522
June 21, 2012
Prof. Lynne Wissink-Tressler

2. Just the Facts, Jack
• Interviewed Valerie
Sheridan Comer
• Since 2006, she has
worked at Holy Trinity
School, which is
located in
Georgetown
• She is a reading
specialist

3. Explain a typical Monday in your
classroom.
• Empty classroom at 7:30 AM
(because she’s a specialist)
• DLR: daily language review
• Introduce spelling pattern of
the week
• Brainstorm words and pre-
test
• Picture walk with predictions
for story
• Reading together from
chapter books
• Draw and Write

4. What are some of the biggest problems
you had to face this past year as a
teacher?
3rd Grade: 4th Grade:
• Almost half of the • Males - beginning of
students have pecking order
special needs • Females - beginning
• Those needs are of cattiness
addressed by school • Intake year for a
through few new students
observations and • Questioning why
rearrangement of most things need to
student’s class be done
schedule

5. What ideas or activities from your
graduate classes are you implementing?
• Storyboard, i.e. digital storytelling
(ED554)
• Running records (ED522)

6. Is there anything there is not
enough in the classroom?
Physical space:
• Because it is an
older building, rooms
not designed for
classroom purposes
have been converted
Necessary for:
• kids’ movement
• creating different
learning centers

7. What advice would you give to a
teacher who was just entering
the elementary school system,
specifically 2nd to 4th grade?
• LISTEN.
• Kids will try to
communicate to the
best of their abilities,
but not necessarily just
in words but also
behavior, gestures and
other actions.

8. Recap questions
• Where does Val teach?
• What’s a DLR?
• What’s the main difficulty with her third
graders?
• What should new elementary school
teachers remember to do, and why?