The Story behind the Book: 365 Teacher Secrets for Parents


Back Story of 365 Teachers Secrets for Parents: Fun Ways to Help Your Elementary Child Succeed in School by Cindy McKinley Alder & Patti Trombly

Nearly 30 years ago, I met Patti in the back row of a grad school classroom at Eastern Michigan University.  Our professor had us begin the class by writing out a “Bliss List”: all the things that made us happy.  When we compared lists, we were shocked to see they were almost identical! We were both due to have our first babies in a few months, both elementary school teachers, both working on a Masters in Reading, and both had a weakness for soft pretzels. We didn’t know it at the time, but that day sparked a decades-long friendship.

Throughout the years, Patti taught upper elementary, and I taught the lower grades.  We met weekly with our four kids and, of course, always ended up talking about teaching and how eager the parents were to find ways to help their kids at home.  I eventually decided to stay home with my kids more and became a private tutor.  These parents, too, were always asking how they could help and make learning fun at home.  For years, I provided them with spelling strategies, book lists for reluctant readers, math game ideas for practicing tough facts, ways to bring science to life, prompts for story writing… When I traveled to various elementary schools to do Author Visits for my children’s books (One Smile and One Voice), those parents inquired about ways to help inspire their kids to love reading.

One day, Patti and I were talking about how lucky we were, that with all of our training and experience, it was easy for us to think of ways to help our own kids if they needed it.  We wished we had a book we could confidently share with all the parents we worked with, a resource book of timeless, practical ideas that they could easily use at home. We tried researching to find a book that offered ideas in multiple areas of the curriculum, but we couldn’t find anything like that… So, we
decided to just write one ourselves! 

We loved the idea of giving parents one idea per day for an entire year, but also broke each month into sections of the curriculum for easy reference: reading, writing, math, critical thinking… We picked one area to begin with and then each started writing the ideas we had used, loved and found the most successful over the years.  Our combined experience in 1st through 5th grade gave us a lot of material to pull from. I think I can speak for us both that writing this book took up every spare second of our lives for about a year.  Our writing styles were so similar that when I look back now, I have no idea which activities I wrote and which Patti wrote! We were thrilled when MSI Press wanted to publish our labor of love, 365 Teachers Secrets for Parents: Fun Ways to Help Your Elementary Child Succeed in School.

A few years ago, we worked together again and wrote a short book on easy ways parents could help ease the frustrations of homework battles, 10 Quick Homework Tips [that back story will be shared next Sunday]. Working with Patti on these two books has been such a blessing.  How lucky I am to have such a great friend in so many ways. Is there another book in our future? Who knows?  But I’d sure be open to it!

~ Cindy McKinley Alder

RECOMMENDED BY US REVIEW OF BOOKS    

Book available at 25% discount with code FF25 at msipress.com/shop.

Read excerpts and other blog posts about Cindy, Patti, and their books HERE.


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