Marcella Reiter is the author and creator of the Magic Words. She is an experienced Classroom Teacher, Education Consultant and Psychologist (BEd ACU and Deakin University, BA(PsychSoc) Monash University, GradDip(HealthSC) The University of Melbourne).
Marcella has taught in Primary, Secondary and Tertiary settings in Australia and overseas, worked as a School Adviser for over two decades, lectures in Education and is the best selling author of M100W - Magic 100 Words, Magic 200 Words, Magic 300 Words and all the Magic Words Literacy Resources.
Magic Words began on the kitchen table when Marcella was playing games to teach her three young children how to read. Marcella researched and found the most important words in learning to read. Using an old set of QANTAS (Australia's National Airline) Playing Cards with the words stuck on the face, she began inventing fun and exciting ways to engage her children in playing card games with these 100 most important words. The aim was to play for short periods of time, often, so that the children would be able to remember the words automatically. They began calling these words the "Magic Words" because they were in every book, magazine and newspaper and just "magically" appeared in everything they read!
Occasionally, Marcella tutored struggling students with reading difficulties; who, after playing with the "Magic Words" card games made remarkable gains in reading. As one mother reported; "This morning the teacher asked to see me; she said that Alexandra had gone up seven reading levels over the Christmas break and wanted to know what we had been doing!" These initial success stories gave Marcella the inspiration and passion to research the potential of using card games to engage children in learning to read. There was significant, rigorous and robust research supporting the frequent use of these 100 words in rapid reading success and that the playing of games was the most efficient way to accelerate learning. Magic Words was created!
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