Reflection About Reading

When I entered the third grade, I had a preschool aged child’s reading level. That was about four years behind my peers. With the new reading program in place and myself gaining a love for reading, I started to broaden my realm of books that I would try and attempt to read. By the end of the school year I was reading small chapter books on a fifth grade reading level. This greatly increased my confidence for reading and was no longer embarrassed to share my accomplishments. I was able to read material that left my mind in an imaginative place. I realized through reading at this age how much of a vivid imagination I truly had. I was able to paint a picture in my head as I read almost like a movie. This greatly helped with my level of reading comprehension as I dove into more difficult reading

My teacher, classmates, and I would read the Magic Tree House series aloud in class. That series definitely influenced my enthusiasm towards reading at a young age because it made me believe that if I read a book, I would become a character. Surprisingly, my arm never became tired after constantly raising my hand all day to volunteer to read out loud. I was eager to present my reading skills to the entire class. I began reading more difficult books as I went into the fourth grade. The students at Brookland were required to take Accelerated Reader (AR) tests over the books we read. We had to reach an AR goal each nine weeks of school. Which meant we had to read books, take tests over them, and pass them in order to get the points. If you met your AR goal, you were able to go on a fun field trip at the end of the nine weeks. The trips were always to the movies or the water park, so I worked very hard to reach my AR

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

The time I usually spent reading when I was younger was now being spent doing homework and sports. At the time was taking pre-AP classes and playing soccer. All my pre-AP teachers drowned me in class work and homework, the time left after completing my school work was filled with soccer. I usually spent two to four hours practicing or playing soccer. Along with no time to read, I began to think reading was nerdy and useless.

Through the years of elementary school, I excelled in reading because of the comprehension I had and my love for books. We were always required to read a book, because we needed a certain amount of accelerated reading points each month. My favorite books were Junie B. Jones and Captain Underpants. I enjoyed reading during these years because it came natural to me and I admired the fictional aspects of books and the way they could make my mind run wild. The teachers I had I credit some of my success to because they helped me succeed in reading during elementary school.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“When I read a book, I put in all the imagination I can, so that it is almost like writing the book as well as reading it - or rather, it is like living it. It makes reading so much more exciting, but I don't suppose many people try to do it.”. People read all the time. They read for information, for escape, for entertainment, for instruction, for guidance. They read recipes and tweets and texts. They read newspapers, blogs, and Facebook replies. As I reflect on my reading memories, I realize they represent the journey I have traveled, leading me to my current academic path. I grow very uninterested in the article that I’m reading, once I lose interest it more of me looking at the words and not actually digesting what I’m reading.

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.

As I started getting older my teachers began assigning readings as homework, which I would avoid at all cost. I would ask people in class to summarize it for me or I would skim it over before class so I knew what everyone else was talking about. At the start of middle school, my friends would talk about how they could get lost into books for hours. I felt a little left out at some times because I never had anything to add to the conversation or relate to it on any personal level. I decided to try and read other books outside of school that I wasn’t forced into. I read what my friends had or were already reading so I could add to the conversation. But this just caused me to develop really bad reading habits. I would skim through each book, never really taking the time to enjoy it. When I “finished” my friends would ask me questions or talk about it, and of course I was totally lost. Causing me come to the conclusion that reading was never going to be my thing.

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.

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.

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.