When Kelli Dossett talks about her teaching career, she becomes animated. When the conversation moves to her career at Lincoln Elementary School, she becomes even more enthusiastic.

"I went to Lincoln from kindergarten through fifth grade," she said. "My dad also went here. Part of my soul is here."

The truth of that statement is reflected in Dossett's being nominated by the LES staff as their building's Teacher of the Year candidate in mid-October.

Jana Koehn, LES principal, recognizes the impact Dossett has on both students and other teachers.

"Kelli became the reading specialist at Lincoln last year and has done an excellent job moving the program forward," Koehn said. "The support for the classroom teachers has been invaluable. She has provided resources, inservice for the aides and paraprofessionals working in the classrooms and help with assessment of students. Her enthusiasm has spread school wide. We are fortunate to have her as a staff member at Lincoln Elementary."

An even greater testimony to her success and her teaching performance occurred when the McPherson Unified School District 418 staff chose her as the Teacher of the Year.

Dossett, who attended Bethany College before going on to Wichita State University to earn a degree in elementary education, also completed her masters in administration at WSU. Taking a class each semester, she is currently working on her reading specialist endorsement.

During her post-master's program with Dr. John Black, former associate superintendent, and Dr. Randy Watson, superintendent, Dossett worked with four other students completing an in-depth study of reading.

"I love that part of my job," Dossett said. "We studied the research that shows what happens to the brain when children read. I even share pictures of the human brain with my students, showing what happens during phonemic awareness."

Her enthusiasm carries over to her students, including the five members of her third-grade after-lunch study club. That excitement touches her students as well, as evidenced when Kaylee Eberhardt and Libbie Matthews can't wait to announce that, in addition to phonemic awareness, they work each day on building words and fluency.

A typical class has students listening and responding to prompts from Dossett that instruct students to sound out words, spell words, separate them into syllables and add suffixes to them.

One of the favorite activities of the students also helps them with fluency. The children love to recite poetry and to present to kindergarten classes in a Readers' Theater. Recently, Eberhardt and Matthews joined their classmates -- William Metheny, Aerial Rhoads and Aaron Williams - in a poetry reading, named “The Turkey Shot Out of the Oven.”

Reading has become the focal point of instruction at LES, according to Dossett.

"We have become passionate here at Lincoln about reading," she said. "This staff is incredible. We're not afraid as a group to study something, implement it and then measure it frequently. If a student does not make progress, we ask each other, 'What else can we do?'"

She described a sense of urgency among staff members in her building to move forward with teaching reading skills. They all respond to the needs of the students by problem solving and brainstorming. she said.

"Reading is the great equalizer," Dossett said. "It doesn't matter what income they have or what home they come from. But research shows that younger intervention gets results. One of my favorite quotes on the subject says that learning something that takes 20 minutes in kindergarten would take two hours of one-on-one at the fourth grade."

Dossett credits many individuals in her building for continuing to be child-focused and child-centered. As a staff they are constantly reassessing and reorganizing, she said.

The reading lab also is staffed by three reading tutors; Dossett praised each of them, pointing out that each is a former reading specialist. With the help of Judith Fast, Rachel Hazelton and Janice Vint, Dossett sets out to make a difference in the quality of life for her students.

"Reading is more than a science," Dossett said. "It's not just building skills and drilling, but it is opening the door so kids can enjoy and love reading."

The Lincoln Parent-Teacher Organization also has given support to the building goals for reading. According to Dossett, in the fall, the PTO awarded a grant to the school, to send Dossett, the tutors and three classroom aides to a reading readiness seminar in Wichita.

Dossett is married to Mike, who is co-owner of a local business. She said he is extremely supportive of her career.

"He didn't know what teaching involves when we married," Dossett said. "But he was in here before the start of school moving walls around for me."

The Dossetts have two grown sons: Abe, a clinical lab specialist living in Kansas City, and Jake, who she described as a life-long learner and artisan.

Dossett cannot imagine doing anything else with her life.

"Every day is different," she said. "We all just need to keep learning."