Nancy Beattie taught middle school language arts for more than 10 years. Convinced middle school had become the "forgotten years" in terms of spelling programs, she became motivated to create a program that would benefit her students in greater ways than just memorizing a group of words in isolation week after week. She created Spelling--An Integrated Approach for Middle School, a program that fit in naturally with the language arts curriculum and devloped the program with middle school students in mind.