Reflection About Reading

The only time I did read was when I had to, but then the idea of reading changed. The accelerated reading program made reading fun and also a challenge, and not in the terms of difficulty, but for the chance to be competitive. With this program you received points by the grade you scored on the exams and the difficulty of the books you chose to read, and as a little elementary peer I wanted the highest score you could possibly get and the most points. This brought a whole new aspect to reading for me that I had never experienced before. Reading became fun and I loved it. I strived to read more books that were of greater difficulty and this challenged my mind to comprehend them. I believe that I truly gained my love for reading at this point in my childhood, by diving into reading material out of my comfort

I didn't learn how to read until the third grade. One day i picked up a book with beautiful pictures and i so badly wanted to understand what it said. And so I did. It just clicked in my head all of a sudden and I was able to understand. Before too long I was reading everything in the school library. I would get lost in the different worlds and I learned the meaning of words I didn't know by reading the sentence/ paragraph it was in. Finally i felt like I had something that I was good at. I could outread my peers before too long and by the time I was 9 years old I was reading college level books with ease. I would be spending at least 4 hours a day just reading, finishing 400 page book in a matter of days. In reading I was able to gain confidence in myself at school, and when things got hard I could just slip into another story and forget about my

Reading has had a place in my life from a young age with two young working parents putting themselves through school, books often kept me busy and quiet. When I started elementary school it took me longer to develop my reading skills if it wasn’t for my favorite book series Amelia Beldia I don’t think I ever would have caught up. The moment I fell in love with reading I was in second grade on a school night I stayed up all night reading a long book about animals. I even woke up my parents at 4 am to tell them how proud I was of myself. Reading in a classroom setting is difficult for me when I'm not interested in the story. The proficiency tests throughout the years k-5th where the worst. Terrible short stories about potato farming, bird flight patterns were not interesting enough to keep my hyperactive mind on track. Against all odds, I was able to focus and graduate

During my childhood, reading played a huge part of my life. I was a hyperactive and adventurous child so reading has been one of the only things that helped me settle down. Especially, trying

Reading has never been too difficult for me. As a child I was constantly reading something. I loved to read, but as I grew my passion for reading slowly began to die. My interest in life and my ideas changed the way I do things, and it unfortunately has changed the way I feel about reading.

As a future elementary school teacher, I have always thought the task of teaching kids could be a rewarding and gratifying experience. However, I recently realized that in order to obtain these rewarding experiences the teacher and students must work hard and with determination. Learning to read can be a very daunting task for a youngster. Therefore, as a teacher, it is your job to facilitate positive reading strategies from the start. Looking back at my experiences as an early reader, I can gain some insight as to what might help or hinder my future students.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a review of the literature regarding an historical perspective on reading instruction in schools, and the balanced literacy philosophy. This information provides a background from which to better understand how the balanced literature approach to reading instruction has come to exist, and the tasks that are part of this philosophy for the teacher. Then, more specific information is examined from the Crowley Independent School District regarding how the balanced literacy framework is implemented within that district. In addition, various curriculum documents are discussed in order to better understand how the CISD implements its balanced literacy program. Furthermore, the professional development and support for the reading initiative that occurs at the district and campus levels is discussed, along with the leadership that is provided within the schools to help teachers successfully carry out the balanced literacy program.

My life has been an interesting twist and turn of events, from when I was a little kid I have issues with my school work and have had a lot of self-doubt in my ability to read, write, and be a confident person in my literacy studies. Reading and writing has never been something I am good at until recent.

If you ponder about it, most people wouldn’t make it in this world we live in today if they didn’t know how to read and write. Reading is everywhere and is a very important, as well as a necessary, part of the human life. Everyday activities include reading road signs, magazines, billboards, texts, newspapers, emails, books, labels and so on. Over the years of learning how to properly read and write, my family and teachers have definitely made a massive impact on my reading and writing techniques that I use today. Books have been an enormous part of my life, if not one of the biggest. They provided me with unforgettable memories that I am thankful for today as I use their advice throughout my life.

Have you ever felt embarrassed about something but didn’t know how to handle it? That was me about reading out loud or reading overall. Reading was a huge problem for me. I never took it serious because I had the attitude, “I will find out how to do it one day.” Baltimore taught me a lot, but it failed me a lot also. What I mean by that is that it will show things that will not help you prosper in life such as how to sell drugs, how to hang out on the corner, and how to shoot and kill people. Although Baltimore can expose your eyes to some bad things, it can also expose you to some positivity. Baltimore will make you want to get on your grind and go to college to get a degree, be successful, and it will teach you that minimum wage is not acceptable these days. So when I say Baltimore has taught me a lot, but it has failed me as well, this is what I mean. My challenges followed me through elementary school where I didn’t value my education, middle school where I began to value my education and through my breakthrough in high school where my education became extremely important to me.

My 3rd grade teacher Ms. Drew helped me learn how to read. Out of all my teachers I ever had I really appreciate her because she wanted to help me and had patient’s other teachers didn’t have with me. Without Ms. Drew in my life I would not even be where I am today because now-a days without being able to read you will be considered stupid and uneducated. She built up my confidence in reading by telling me I can do it, it worked because all the time and patients she put in me. I knew I can read I just was a hard-headed kid who needed somebody to sit down with me and show me how important it is to know how to read as an black male. Some problems I had when reading out loud is going skipping over words, struggling pronouncing words and just feeling ashamed and stopped reading when I miss pronounce a word.

While I was attending elementary school, reading was a crucial piece of my life. I would read almost anything that caught my interest additionally, reading has taught me many critical thinking skills throughout my life. In my third grade class, I had a teacher who I seemed to disagree with a majority of the time, Mr. Johnson. He was a polite man, intelligent, slim, and had dark curly hair. He would assign each student 20 minutes of reading out of class each day, which was always a straightforward task. Library trips were frequent due to us having to read a certain amount of minutes per week.

At a very young age I developed a hatred for reading. It felt like a chore that my teachers and parents were forcing me to do. Reading for pleasure was never really my thing, I didn’t see the importance of it. Not to mention, I was never as good as everyone else at it. I could never fully grasped what exactly I was reading as quickly as others.

My second year as a second grade teacher has been full of changes. This year, administration has changed the way that reading would look for second grade. Now, my students switch to four other teachers for the whole reading block whereas last year I had my class for the entire reading block. The group of students who I teach during reading range from DRA 20-28. These students are either on or above grade level in reading. For that reason, I am only responsible for the reading instruction of transitional and advanced readers.

After doing a read aloud and independent reads of the fable The Crow and the Pitcher & The Tortoise and the Hare, through reading aloud or independent read, students will reflect on situations in their life that present challenges. Students will be divided up into groups of four with five students in each cluster and discuss one of the fables read in class. Students will reflect on the challenges the character faces in the story. Each group will come up with evidence, showing the challenges the character faced. The group will explain how these challenges brought strength to the character. Each group will come up with evidence to show how the challenges the character faces can also bring strength to the character. Students will write and draw an example of something in their life that describes the moral presented in the story they analyzed.