My name is Megan Machuga. I am from Gastonia, NC. I am a kindergarten teacher at H.H. Beam Elementary School. I am about to complete my third year teaching. My first year I taught 1st grade and the past 2 years I have been in kindergarten. I love this grade. The students are so fun and energetic. I love how my students get so excited about learning new things. I get such a joy out of watching my students grow and learn. When I see the expressions on their faces when they figure something new out it makes me rememeber why I do this job.
I do not remember much from kindergarten about learning to read. I do remember taking home little Saxon Phonics readers when I was in first grade. My mom tells me that in kindergarten I did fine beginning to learn to read but that in first grade I struggled in reading. She said that I would look at the pictures to try to figure out what the sentence was saying instead of trying to read. She said that I would get confused. Eventually I grew out of that and began doing fine in reading. I know we did a little bit of phonics but I think that most of our reading instruction was whole language during first grade. In second grade we did saxon phonics, but I don't remember much about that.
I began really enjoying reading when I got into third and fourth grade. I would read boxcar children, babysitter club, and goosebumps books. I would read to my parents some at night. One of my best memories from my childhood is at night my parents would sit and read a chapter of books that were still to hard for me to read. One book I very vividly rememebr them taking turns and reading to me was James and the Giant Peach. The way they read it made the book come alive. I contribute a lot of my success in reading to my parents taking the time out of their nights to sit and read to me and my brother. Those memories mean so much to me and at the same time helped to build reading skills that helped me further along.
I feel that through my elementary school years my teachers did a great job of introducing me to interesting and exciting literature. Most took the time to have storytime and read outloud to the class. This was always fun to me. I have always liked to listen to other people read books. Having this modeled for me showed me how important it is for students. I do this in my class daily.
I do remember starting to dislike reading in middle school because we had to take AR tests. I did not like having to read to answer questions. I think that this program turned me off to reading for a while because some of the books I wanted to read were not on the lists and so I had to read books that were not enjoyable to me. After middle school I continued to read books that I enjoyed.
I feel that in my classroom it is so important to expose my students to great literature. I know that if they do not get to hear them and look at them in my classroom they might not ever see them. I work at a Title I school and many of my studnets do not have books at home to read. I see how important it is for these students to be exposed to as much literature in school as possible because they may not get that at home. Reading is one of the most important skills for life and I want my students to understand that and learn to enjoy reading because it is fun not because the teacher makes you read.
Megan Machuga