My Reading Blog

Describe yourself as a reader. Do you like to read? Why/not?

My first experience with reading was with my mother who read to me every night before bed as a young child. It was my favorite time of the day. I always asked for one more story. My brothers thought that I was spoiled. I disagree because she opened the literacy door for me. I remember walking to the library with her every summer and enjoying reading together. When I had my children, I followed in her footsteps and read to both of my children every night.
Yes, I like to read. I love to read to children. I also like to read for pleasure. Unfortunately, I do not get to read as many novels thoughout the school year because I am so busy. I usually catch up on my reading in the summer. I find myself reading the books that my children are reading for school. I liked one author so much that I read most of her works over last summer.

I especially love picture books, and I use them as writing models to teach the six traits of writing. I such had a wonderful experience last year reading to my class and the students created such beautiful picture books.

How do you teach reading?

I've taught so many grade levels so the answer to this question is varied. I've taught pre-school and kindergarten where they learned their letters and phonics. In kindergarten, we had the Beginning to Read, Write, and Listen series where the students actually started reading short stories in the spring. I loved watching their progress as we went through each of their letter books. They only learned the short vowel sounds.

In 4th and 5th grade, I have used the Spotlight on Literature series that contains various types of short stories, poems, and writing activities. We also read popular novels with the traditional lessons that include vocabulary worksheets, comprehension questions, open-ended questions, and activities. I have also taught novels using literature circles where each student in the group has a role such as, word watcher, artist, discussion leader, quote finder, and other roles that vary with the novel. We also have workbooks for the NJASK4 in reading where they practice skills and answering different types of questions.

In 7th and 8th grade, I was the GEPA teacher and we did a lot of test prep using workbooks. Authentic literature was the focus in the spring after the test, and I taught with the traditional reading lessons on vocabulary, comprehension, and open-ended questions.

When I taught high school, we read authentic literature and had a reading textbook for the bulk of the reading lessons. I was also the HSPA teacher for one year and we used test prep books for reading to practice skills, answering multiple choice, and open-ended questions.

How might technology impact that?

I taught an 8th grade laptop program. We had reading in the traditional sense with novels, but we used the laptops for any reading assignments: vocabulary, comprehension questions, open-ended questions, and activities.

In 4th grade, we have four computers in the classroom and the tech coordinator puts special interactive sites on the computers that complement the novel we are reading in class.

I am in the process of acquiring books for my classroom and I am interested in setting up book clubs in the spring after the state test. I am going to go to a workshop and I hope to come back with some good ideas. I hope to integrate technology and work on the moodle site for my students. We will be experiencing new literacies together in the near future. I have no idea where all of this will lead, but I'm excited about the new technology.

We read in every subject area and we are reading while we are doing our assignments. We don't really think about reading because our focus is on what we are researching, but we are reading constantly on the computer. We no longer read as much in the traditional sense, but on every website we are reading for a purpose whether it be to find information or for pleasure.