I feel like I've always been a very avid reader; I have had a love for reading for as long as I can remember! Starting from when I was just a little girl, I can remember going to the library with my mom and dad each weekend to check out books for the following week's bedtime stories. As I got older, whenever I made what my parents considered good grades in school my reward would always be going to the book store to buy new books. (This past semester I made really good grades and as soon as I got home for winter break I immediately asked my mom if we could go to the book store!) When I got to high school I still had the same love for reading that I had when I was a little girl, however, because of all the school work that I was assigned I wasn't able to read what I wanted to read. In the fall of '09 when I arrived at ECU I decided that I would put special time away at the end of each day so that I could read what I wanted to read before I went to bed, just like I did when I was in elementary school.
From what I can remember, I was taught to read in kindergarten by my teacher Mrs. Martin. She had little books that probably weren't more than 5 pages long and each page had very similar sentences. I can't remember exactly but I feel like if I was learning to read at school my parents must have been also teaching me to read at home each night while we read bedtime stories. The next memories I have of reading would be reading calendars that my second grade teacher assigned. For my reading calendar the teacher would ask for us to read for at least 30 minutes each night and then have our parents initial that we had completed this task. If we read we got a sticker placed on that day and at the end of the week if we had all our stickers we could go to the teacher's prize shelf and pick out a prize.
One memory that really stands out to me is my mom, sister, and I all being in my room, sitting on my bed and my mom reading the Harry Potter books to us. I know that I must have known how to read and I'm pretty sure that my sister knew how to also but there was just something special about our mom reading us bedtime stories. Looking back on it now, I feel bad because I'm sure that shortly after my sister and I thought it wasn't cool to be read to by your mom and we wouldn't let her read to us anymore.
My mom has saved a lot of my sister and my schoolwork from kindergarten until 7th grade; and over winter break one afternoon I went down into our basement to look through that work. I found two large journals, the kind where the lines are as wide as 3 fingers and there is plenty of room to draw pictures. Looking through those journals I had no idea what I was writing about until I turned the page over and saw in little pencil writing my teacher had translated my misspelled words and scribbles into what I told her I had written. Just like Mrs. Jarvis in "Letting Go of 'Letter of the Week'" my teachers hadn't told me that what I wrote was wrong, it was just how I knew how to write at the time. Another memory that "Letting Go of 'Letter of the Week'" inspired was in 3rd grade my teacher also did Morning Messages but we would have to write them down in our morning journal. Once everyone had written down the message my teacher would ask students to help solve the message. As we were editing the message on the board we also had to edit what we had written in our journal. Once we had the initial guesses written on the board, the teacher would ask for other students to revise what answers had been given.
I think my past literacy history has really influenced the book lover I am today. I know a lot of kids who really dislike reading and I think that may be because they didn't have the same kinds of experiences that I had when I was younger. When I become a teacher I definitely want to have reading time set aside whether we're reading picture books or chapter books I think it's something students will enjoy; like my classmates and I enjoyed while we were in elementary school. I would also like to have a classroom library set up because this would also encourage students to read more on their own. I know I also want to use a Morning Message in my classroom because it will help encourage writing and editing. I want to set up literacy centers very similar to the ones discussed in Chapter 2 of Rog's book. While doing my practicum last semester I observed a first grade class who did centers everyday. I could tell that the students really enjoyed them and liked the freedom of picking which center they wanted to attend. I really want to try to set my future students up to fall in love with reading and writing, I would be disappointed if I found out that because I hadn't encouraged these things in my classroom my students had a very strong disliking for it. I am hoping to learn how to teach kids who have difficulties reading learn to appreciate reading as much as I do.
