Nov. 11, 2025
Teaching ELA With Heart, Tech, And Targeted Test Prep
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
00:06 - Welcome From OKSTE In Tulsa
00:15 - Meet Fifth Grade ELA Teacher
00:46 - Day-To-Day And Student Growth
02:36 - Using ABC For Test Prep
04:13 - Scores, Pacing, And Vocabulary
04:54 - Embracing Tech And AI In Class
05:40 - Advice To The OKSTE Community
WEBVTT
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Welcome to Spotlight for Success by American Book Company.
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Hi, I'm Devin Pintozi, your host.
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We are here at the wonderful OK STE.
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This is the uh technology conference in Oklahoma, and we are so excited to be here in Tulsa with Carrie Damron.
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Hi.
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I'm excited to be on my first ever podcast.
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Yes, Carrie.
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And my first tech conference.
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So that's that's wonderful.
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Uh Carrie joins us from Sayre Elementary.
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Yeah.
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Hi, yeah.
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I'm Sayre Elementary.
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Wonderful.
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I understand you're a fifth grade teacher, is that right?
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Yes, I teach fifth grade uh ELA, so it's reading and writing those skills.
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Oh, that's wonderful.
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And uh so can you tell me a bit, Carrie, about what your day-to-day is like in the schools.
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Um day to day, um in fifth grade we're departmentalized, so I of course only teach ELA, and so we switch from reading to math to you know science, social studies.
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Um in fifth grade, we're kind of getting them ready to you know start moving towards the middle school, high school.
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So uh as much as it is like you know, book work and focusing on those state standards, it's they're at that age that you know you try to help them be people, and there's a lot of you know character development, and they are realizing they're starting to be people, so it's a lot of life lessons and kind of teaching them how to be people along the way.
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So it's it's all you have to be well rounded.
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Thank you for watching Spotlight for success.
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I am David, the chief operating officer of American company.
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We are located here in our headquarters in Winston, Georgia.com.
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We look forward to hearing from you.
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Well, thank you so much for being a uh an educator, so involved with your students in the classroom.
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Uh that's really wonderful.
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Um, so I understand uh you used American Book Company materials.
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Uh yes, so I saw the ABC and I was like, I know that.
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Where where do we know that from?
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And then I saw the books and I was like, oh my gosh, that is like my that's my bread and butter.
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Um so I use it for all of our test prep.
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That's like when we get the big uh big purple book out.
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Is mine purple?
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It's like a purplish red.
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Then we know it's go time.
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And I just I I love that book because um it highlights those state standards and then all the substandards, and it's just it's put together really nicely and it's easy to follow and clear.
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Sometimes you get too much, but it's it's just like just enough.
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You know, you can pick and choose what you kind of need to do, which I I end up using all of it, but if you want to kind of accommodate towards okay, you need to write this, or if you need to do it all together, but I also have some of the older stuff, so when I need to kind of merge uh speakers coming in.
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But um, if I need to remediate with 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 highlight where we need to work on as well.
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So I love the book.
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I was looking at it, I'm like, oh, that's nice and sharp and clean.
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Might have to take that one with me.
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There you go.
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Absolutely.
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Well, I'm glad they worked out so well for you, and I understand that the scores were were good.
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Yeah, so every year, and and I can see, you know, and if if I take a greater emphasis on 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.
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Like I think one of mine was like vocabulary side.
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I like went back in for this year, made sure that all my my work throughout this year, like my pacing guide, that you know, those were the words I used in my review, like make sure I am implementing those different practices to kind of help with my stage force.
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Oh, that's wonderful.
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I'm glad that uh really worked out for you.
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And uh, do you have anything you're hoping to get out of this conference to take back to your team?
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Oh gosh.
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Um, so I I love to embrace the technology, and there's so many like things with AI and stuff.
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Um I love you know paper and pencil, but I also there's such a you kind of have to merge the two of old fashioned and new.
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You're just gonna have to do both.
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So I'm trying to be with it and up with everyone else, and I don't know, just practice using it because my kids are really smart and they love to get on their devices and figure all that out sometimes before me, so I gotta keep up with them or say like a step ahead of them, but in an educational way.
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So I'd be like, this is how we use it correctly, this is how we can use it for good, not I wouldn't want to say evil, but exactly.
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Exactly.
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Um do you have anything you'd like to share with the OKST community?
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Um just don't be afraid of learning and growing and keep moving forward and just to embrace it and don't um just keep working.
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I'm just glad I glad I gotta come.
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That's awesome.
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So thank you so much.
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This again, this is uh Carrie Damron.
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Uh, thank you for joining us for Sayre Elementary.
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Appreciate you being with us today.
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Thank you so much.
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