History of Fluency Matters
Pre-Fluency Matters / Pre-TPRS Publishing, Inc. Era
1990 – FIREWORKS! Blaine Ray invents Total Physical Response Storytelling and begins Blaine Ray Workshops.
Carol Gaab is hired to teach ESL for the Oakland A’s and knows nothing about TPRS.
1993 – Carol Gaab attends a TPRS workshop by Valeri Marsh & Christine Anderson of C.W. Publishing. She is blown away by their presentation! She jumps right into TPRS, teaching high school Spanish at a private school in Phoenix, AZ.
1994 – 1997 – Carol teaches Spanish to grades K-8 and also teaches ESL to 4 MLB teams.
1997 – Carol is hired by Valeri Marsh at C.W. Publishing. She begins presenting TPRS workshops and continues to teach language classes, for 5 MLB teams.
2000 – Carol begins teaching ESL exclusively for the San Francisco Giants.
2001 – Valeri Marsh leaves C.W. Publishing.
TPRS Publishing, Inc. Era
2001 – TPRS Publishing, Inc. is born!
Carol Gaab bought the rights to 3 TPRS books from Valeri Marsh, co-author and owner of C.W. Publishing. Valeri had left the education world to homeschool her four children, and Carol started TPRS Publishing, Inc. with three curriculums: Hola Ninos, Cuéntame & Cuéntame más (and French versions).
2004 – Level 2 TPRS curriculum created for Spanish and French.
2005 – The acronym for TPRS transitions to a new name: Teaching Proficiency through Reading & Storytelling.
2006 – 2013 – BER (the Bureau of Education and Research) hires Carol Gaab to present seminars on TPRS.
2007 – First novel is published– ‘Los Baker van a Peru’, written by Nathaniel Kirby and his students.
TPRS Publishing, Inc. hosts the first annual Multi-cultural Conference in Cancun, Mexico and goes on to host five more international conferences. between 2008 and 2012.
2008 – Second novel is published– ‘Los Piratas del Caribe el el mapa secreto’ co-authored by Mira Canion & Carol Gaab.
Level 3 TPRS curriculum is published in Spanish and French.
Fluency Matters / TPRS Publishing, Inc. Era
2009 – ‘Fluency Matters’ is established to provide online training on various CI-based strategies. The company begins to shift from a narrow focus on TPRS to a broader focus on various approaches aligned with the principles of second language acquisition (SLA).
2012 – Fluency Matters / TPRS Publishing, Inc. hosts its last international Multi-cultural Conference.
2013 – TPRS Publishing, Inc. is asked to sponsor iFLT, (International Forum on Language Teaching, a forum inspired by Dr. Stephen Krashen and with his help, created by Diana Noonan, Leslie Davison, Jason Fritze, Karen Rowan and a handful of other teachers).
2013 (to present ) – Fluency Matters continues to sponsor iFLT with input from its originators and a host of other SLA-focused educators.
Fluency Matters Era
2016 – After 16 years and 41 novels, TPRS Publishing, Inc. unveils a new SLA-focused mission and a new name: FLUENCY MATTERS!
2018 – Fluency Matters continues to publish comprehension-based readers and to provide teacher training based on the principles of SLA.
Our 48th comprehension-based reader is published, and more are on the way…