How I learned to read.

I learned to read through a variety of activities and centers that made the learning tangible, which is how I like to learn. In Kindergarten, we talked about environmental print, where you see the symbols and what they mean. Letter people were my favorite things to play with and learn about. They each had a story and it always contained the letter sound heavily in the reading. We had a center of blow up letters that had been stuffed like a pillow to play with and a letter of the week that we thoroughly learned the name of, the sound it made, and how to draw it. Fingerpainting was a neat way we drew our letters and all of the students decorated letters hung about the room throughout the week. In first grade, as we progressed, instead of the letter of the week, we had the sound of the week and all of our activities revolved around words containing the sound of the week! For show and tell, the object we brought had to begin with our letter of the week (and fit in a paper bag) and we would draw the letter and create a picture out of it or around it.

I may have mentioned already a pleasant moment in school already, but another occurred in first grade when Mrs. Smith would choose two students at random to have the tree house all to themselves during reading time, because during any other center time, it was always too full, too fast to ever get up there. It was marvelous and I remember getting to go up there freely several times throughout the year and feeling so special.

I had a frustrating experience repeatedly throughout elementary school probably beginning in about third grade; especially third grade. Popcorn reading was my worst nightmare! I still to this day do not like reading out loud to peers. I would be so terrified that it would be my turn next and that I would mess up and every one would know that I probably did not even pay attention to the story. I most definitely will not be using popcorn reading in my classroom.

Reading in School

My earliest memories of reading in school are listening to a story read by our teacher and community volunteers or parents, keeping reading logs of class stories we had written, and going to the library to listen to interesting tales and watching the librarian perform puppet shows for us. I loved reading as a child and was even part of an after school program in the later grades of elementary school called Reading Robins. It was just a few students from my grade and we would meet with our sponsor (another teacher) and pick new chapter books to read and then discuss them as a group. It made reading fun and social, which it had not really been before, at least with friends.

My earliest memories of reading outside of school are reading with my Mom and Dad all the time! This is probably why I loved reading so much and was not as intimidated by it as other students were. We read after school, before bedtime and on the weekends. My younger sister had one particular book that she wanted to read everyday, but I wanted to read a new one each time. I had favorite authors that my parents would take me to meet and get them to sign my books and when I was younger I spotted environmental print and recognized them as words. My family also participated in a book drive, where I had to keep a log of all the books either my parents read to me or I read myself and after a certain number of hours Scholastic would donate books to our school library!

Lily's Appointment

Lily's Appointment

I wrote this short story about my puppy Lily and her appointment at the vet and turned it into a visual storytelling piece. I really enjoyed the experience and learned a ton of great technology in the process! I hope to do a project similar to this with my own class in the future! I could not upload the video so please enjoy the script!!!

The day arrived when Lily had to go.

She doesn’t like the veterinarian’s office. They always give her shots that hurt. But she feels so sick that she must go to her appointment.

On their way, Lily’s Mom and Grandma try to make her feel better with treats and bones, but there is no use.

Lily is scared.

Lily arrives at the veterinarian’s office and a nice lady named Bridget takes her to a little room.

To Lily’s surprise, the nice lady was her veterinarian! “Maybe this won’t be so bad,” Lily thought.

Dr. Bridget listens to Lily’s heart, checks her teeth, and weighs her on the scale.

“5 pounds exactly!” cheered Bridget, “Besides feeling sick you are a very healthy Chihuahua!”

“But we are going to have to give you a shot so that you will feel better soon.”

After the dreaded shot, Lily was ready to go home. She had been brave but needed some rest in her own bed.

Dr. Bridget walks Lily and her mom back to the front to say goodbye.

“See you next time Lily, you were such a brave girl today!” she said.

Lily was proud. No more would she be afraid of the veterinarian’s office. Lily had a friend there.

After Lily and her Mom arrived at home, Lily laid around with her family for several days before she began to feel better.

Even when they went places, Lily felt tired.

But soon Lily began to feel better, feel hungry and want to play with her friends again.

Now that her appointment was over, Lily knew she had been very brave and that she wouldn’t feel sick any longer!

Stellaluna

Stellaluna by Janell Cannon, is a wonderful story book for children to learn the important lesson that we are all different and unique but can live together and be friends. As cheesy as this sounds I think that the whole world needs to read this book! Stellaluna gets lost from her mother bat and finds herself living in a nest with baby birds her same age. They find out the many differences between their species but all realize in the end that their differences should keep them from being friends. I plan on using this book in my future classroom in the very beginning of the year, the middle and the end. In the beginning we will discuss as a class what makes the bats and birds different, whats makes us as individuals different and how we can still work together and be friends, despite our differences. The middle of the year reading will serve as a reminder and refresher to help with any problems that may have arose in the first semester. The end reading will serve as a demonstration of hopefully, how far we have come as a class and a group of people that are working together despite differences and what lessons we have learned through this process. I think this book can make a huge difference in the classroom environment at any school and will hopefully continue to help the children who find themselves in my class throughout their schooling. I hope that they can remember the story and apply it to whatever they are facing. Not many stories I think have this much of a broad impact and potential for children today and I think teachers, parents and the community can utilize this book for a great purpose. I apologize if I seem overly excited about this story, but my mother who is a teacher uses this book every year for the same purpose and I have seen the impact it can have. It is much easier for students to learn lessons through the difficulties of a character and apply them to his situation, than to have to learn them himself, alone.

Ramona and Her Father

Ramona and Her Father by Beverley Cleary was a favorite story of mine as a kid but I couldn't remember even the basic story line, only that I had loved it. I decided to read it again over Spring Break as one of my 10 outside reading books and it really had an impact on me. Ramona in the book, tries and tries to control and fix her family and their problems that are too large for a young child like her to fix. She learns through a lot of trial and error that some troubles fix themselves and some you just have to let someone else fix for you because they are too much for you at the time. Among the many smaller problems the family members face in the story, the most important troubles are with her Dad, hence the title of the book! In the beginning her father looses his job and so they are tight on money. Her father also smokes and begin to smoke heavily because of the loss of his job. These two problems give Ramona a lot of trouble because as hard as she may try, she can not fix them. As a child, I also tried to fix problems that were out of my league and she to even now try to take on too much at once. Take for instance this semester, my course load, working, my dog, my friends, roommate issues, being involved in 4 student organizations and holding a position in my sorority have given me a run for my money keeping up with everything and on top of all of this my sister is getting into trouble as a freshman in college and my great grandma is very sick. Try as I may, I can not fix these problems and it does not a bit of good to stress over them, but I still do. I understand Ramona and feel that I can stand to learn a lesson or to from her and her trials before mine get out of hand! I really enjoyed this story and I definitely think that it is relevant to all!

The author Beverley Cleary, who continues to write in the 21st century, strives to bring characters to children who are just like them and that they can learn from. As a child in Oregon, Beverley searched the school libraries for stories she could relate to and characters she would love but was left empty handed at the time. One teacher commented to her in 7th grade that she should just write the stories she wishes to read and become a children's book author. Beverley took the idea and ran with it, never doubting what she would become and thankfully for this, children today have tons of tales of characters such as Ramona, to get to know, learn from and understand to help them get through their own childhoods!

The Birthday Present

The Birthday Present by Maria Edgeworth is a simple, didactic, and vividly written story about a young girl who must learn the tough lessons of modesty and generosity. Rosamond the main character has her friend, Bell's birthday party coming up and to make herself look better, she tries to make a show of her generosity but ends up making a fool of herself. Rosamond's sister Laura is not concerned with making a show and keeps her money until their is a person in need of it, which turns out to shine a lovely light on how generous and kind Laura really is. Rosamond has to learn a tough lesson that I think a lot of young people would appreciate reading about. Many adults I know need to learn this lesson! Because of the broad and universal lesson set in motion by this story I think that it is still relevant to people today and should be shared.

The author's name was Maria Edgeworth was lived and worked int he 19th century. She was a spinster who lived at home with her beloved father and took care of his 21 children he had through several marriages. His last wife, who out lived him, was the same age as Louisa and actually became her best friend. Maria's father was extremely influential in her writing, even controlling in the beginning, not allowing anything to be published until her approved of it. I believe that this story was one of Maria's first ventures into publishing in her name, by herself, without the assistance of her father. They published several parenting volumes together on their beliefs and studies of all the children in the house including, "Parent's Assistant" in which this story first appeared. They primary belief about raising children was that parent must be present in their children's lives and not leave them to be cared for by the nursemaids, as the character Bell was. Rosamond was a common character in Maria's writing, using the young girl as a bad example who learns a lesson in the end. The story falls under domestic fiction which was incredibly popular at the time, although Maria did not choose this genre for this reason, she simply wrote about what she knew. I really enjoyed reading this book and I think that it can certainly be relevant in today's world.

Little Women

The story of Little Women is one that I have enjoyed for much of my life. My sister and I have watched the movie version with Winona Ryder so many times that I could quote the majority of the movie still to this day! However well I thought that I knew the story from knowing the movie version by heart, does not compare to the love I have for it now after reading the novel. I also thought it even more intriguing after researching the author a little more in depth. Louisa May Alcott, the author, actually loosely based her main character of Jo March on herself. The character of Jo is interesting to me because of the way she feels an outsider in her own world. It is almost as if she must have been adopted into the family. This sense of separation from what is expected of a girl in her station and what is considered proper is plainly seen in the text through the descriptions of her actions and her thoughts on her life. All of the sisters suffer from an extreme amount of longing for better things and wishing for more, expect Beth, who I would consider as Jo's opposite. Beth never complains and always seems to behave in the correct way and be the perfect, polite, though shy, girl that was the ideal then. Jo having married the mysterious professor in the end is the only truly visible difference between her character and Louisa's personal life. Louisa never married but seemed determined not to ever marry, having multiple offers over her lifetime. It is a wonderful tale about a typical middle class family of the time and I definitely think that all of the discreet morals in the story still heavily apply today. I would recommend this story to anyone!