I am a Special Education Teacher at Cone Elementary in Greensboro, NC. This is my tenth year as a resource teacher at the same school. Early into my career, I worked with kindergarten through 5th grade students. For the last seven years, I have worked mainly with fourth and fifth grade students with various disabilities. Cone is a Title-1 school in an urban area. We have children and families with many needs. I enjoy the children I work with and feel every child deserves a teacher who will do their best to help them succeed. I became NB certified and then decided to continue my education at ASU.
After reading the assignment, I sat back and tried to remember my early experiences with literacy learning and I must say I do not remember much. I was a child with many needs. Early in my schooling, I was identified and placed in Special Education as Speech Impaired. I also received remedial help, as I think it was called, to help me with my reading. I disliked school, was very shy, and did not have much confidence because of my difficulties reading. I am sure I was in the low reading groups until everything turned around in the fourth grade. My mother had to work with my brother and me to help us to read and achieve what came so naturally for my two sisters. They were avid readers just like my father and could read a one hundred-page book in one sitting. To me reading became a chore that I did not do well. I was able to recall words and read fluently; however, I could not comprehend most of what I read especially on the first try. Reading that took the average child five minutes to read and comprehend took much longer. I can remember reading a section of a book repeatedly to try to comprehend it.
At home, I received much support from my mother who made us read religiously. Not only did we have to read the Bible, but also we had to read other books that she would pick up from wherever she could. We had a built-in bookshelf in the laundry room. I am sure they were storage shelves, but my mother turned it into our own personally library and it is still there today. We did read magazines such as Highlights. We would read those books and magazines and learn many things. We also made weekly trips to the library with my father to check out books.
I was able to draw and loved to write stories and illustrate them. I was not a great writer, but enjoyed making up stories. I do remember a story I wrote and illustrated about an Indian. I remember thinking I had written so much I may be able to make it into a book. We did not have access to much technology in my home. We did watch Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow and Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood daily. Outside of those educational shows, we did not watch much television. My parents believed in children playing outside and exploring which helped us to develop our imagination and creative thinking skills which most children lack today.
I am not comfortable performing in plays or expressing myself orally. This is partially due to early speech impediments. Although, I must say I have grown and have come out of my shell thanks in part to my pastor who started making me read in bible study a few years ago. This plus my previous professors convincing me to speak at conferences has given me more confidence in my speaking and reading abilities. I am not a bookworm. It is not often that I pick up a book to read except for the books I have read for graduate school, which I must say I have enjoyed most of them. I think the reason I have not been a lover of books is the challenges I had as a child, but I am gradually changing all of that. Being in graduate school has opened me up to many new authors of children’s books and adult books that I plan to continue reading. I do share my experiences with my students in hopes that they will never give up and they to may enjoy reading. I let them know that still today I have to read some information more than once to remember what I have read and it is okay. Many times children think we as teachers cannot sympathize with what they are going through. I want my students to have a positive experience with literacy that will continue into adulthood.
Danielle Griffin