Beth Slingerland was an

educator A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...

who developed a classroom adaptation of the

Orton-Gillingham The Orton-Gillingham approach is a multisensory phonics technique for remedial reading instruction developed in the early-20th century. It is practiced as a direct, explicit, cognitive, cumulative, and multi-sensory approach. While it is most comm ...

system for teaching

dyslexic Dyslexia, also known until the 1960s as word blindness, is a disorder characterized by reading below the expected level for one's age. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may include difficulties in spelling words, r ...

children.

Life

Slingerland was born in Santa Rosa in 1900. She studied education at

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...

, and has a degree from

Seattle Pacific University Seattle Pacific University (SPU) is a private Christian university in Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1891 in conjunction with the Oregon and Washington Conference of the Free Methodist Church as the Seattle Seminary. It became the Seat ...

Career

While the director of the lower school at the

Punahou School Punahou School (known as Oahu College until 1934) is a private, co-educational, college preparatory school in Honolulu, Hawaii. More than 3,700 students attend the school from kindergarten through twelfth grade, 12th grade. Protestant missionar ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

from 1938-1945. she became interested in the issue of reading challenges faced by some students. While in Hawaii, she worked with

Anna Gillingham Anna Gillingham (1878–1963) was an educator and psychologist, known for her contributions to the Orton-Gillingham method for teaching children with dyslexia how to read. Early life and education Gillingham was born on July 12, 1879. She was home ...

and

Bessie Stillman Bessie Whitmore Stillman (1871-1947) was an educator and contributor to the Orton-Gillingham teaching method for students with disabilities in reading. Career Stillman was a teacher at the Ethical Culture School in New York when she met Anna Gi ...

on a multisensory method to help dyslexics learn to read. In the late 1940s she became the coordinator of a language disability program in the

Renton, Washington Renton is a city in King County, Washington, and an inner-ring suburb of Seattle. Situated southeast of downtown Seattle, Renton straddles the southeast shore of Lake Washington, at the mouth of the Cedar River. As of the 2020 census, the ...

school district where she worked until 1965. In 1977, she founded the Slingerland Institute in

Bellevue, Washington Bellevue ( ) is a city in the Eastside region of King County, Washington, United States, located across Lake Washington from Seattle. It is the third-largest city in the Seattle metropolitan area and has variously been characterized as a s ...

. Slingerland's classroom adaptation of the Orton-Gillingham system is called the Slingerland Screening for Identifying Children with Specific Language Disability, or the 'Slingerland Method' for short. The test screens to identify language disabilities and is divided into eight subtests. Slingerhand's work in the field of dyslexia included advocating for increased funding to support training and teaching the methods needed for dyslexic children.

Pearl Harbor

On December 7, 1941, Beth was a witness to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Her Husband, John Slingerland, was a civilian employee on the naval base. She witnessed these attacks from her home in the hills above the harbor, and described the scene she saw in a detailed letter to her mother and father. Throughout the letter, she describes with time stamps: the sounds of guns, smoke rolling over the hills, and her worries for her husband. In the letter, she states, “ I have to do something because I can see the smoke pouring up into the air from Pearl Harbor and the sound of the guns and the bombs bursting in the water right before us keeps me in such a nervous state that I must do something. John is at Pearl Harbor.” She also describes partially what her husband witnessed.

Death and legacy

The Institute trains 600 teachers in the US and Canada and recently opened a training program in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. She died in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

in March 1989 at 89 years old.

Awards and honors

In 1972 the Orton Society, now known as the

International Dyslexia Association The International Dyslexia Association (IDA) is a non-profit education and advocacy organization devoted to issues surrounding dyslexia. It is based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. The International Dyslexia Association serves individuals ...

honored Slingerland with their highest honor, the Samuel Torrey Orton Award.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Slingerland, Beth 1989 deaths American educators 1900 births Seattle Pacific University alumni Reading skill advocates Dyslexia researchers