Allen and Virginia Crane

Allen & Virginia Crane have a combined 70 years of experience as public school teachers and counselors. They have worked in Farmington, New Mexico, Green River, Wyoming and Pine Ridge, South Dakota. Allen states “Virginia and I have not invented the wheel. Any time we heard of something working, we went to observe it, figure out why it was working, and add it our to-do list.” This process of seeking innovative techniques is best illustrated by the following anecdote.

While Allen was working as an elementary counselor in Farmington, teacher Mrs. Winters would meet him at the door demanding to know why Sheila could not learn to read. He kept telling her that Sheila had failed the Bender Gestalt Perception Test. Mrs. Winter’s response was, “What are we going to do about it?” One day Allen learned of Howard Walton, OD an optometrist in Culver City, California who could correct vision perception problems. He flew to California and met with Dr. Walton the next week end. Dr. Walton told Allen of various techniques to try with Sheila- and within six weeks Sheila’s problems were corrected and she did learn to read. Since that time Allen and Virginia have spent 40 years seeking to improve reading and reading instruction.  Allen says, “We have not invented any new approaches.  We have identified a number of techniques which work, moving the bottom group to the top group.  Some of these techniques have been known for many years.”  For example, the Harmon distance (desk height) is based on research done 70 years ago with 160,000 students.

Email address:

areadingpro@aol.com