RES 5535: Race, Class, and Gender in Literacy Research (summer 2010)

Hello, my name is Katy Dellinger and I am a 7th grade Exceptional Children's Teacher at Lincolnton Middle School. I have almost completed my second year of teaching. I graduated from Appalachian State University with a Bachelor's Degree in Special Education: General Curriculum K-12 in the spring of 2008. The school that I teach at is a Title One school and there are many pros and cons to teaching at this school. First of all, since we are funded by the federal government we have access to a lot of materials. I am hoping that one day we will all have smart boards or promethean boards in our rooms to teach with. We also have the privilege of having a literacy coach who comes in and helps us teach our kids. She is great at showing teachers how to differentiate instruction and she is also willing to come into our classes and co-teach with us. Title One schools such as ours also have Title One teachers. We have a Title One reading and math teacher. These teachers are very helpful in providing more intense instruction to a smaller group of students who struggle with something specific. The downside to teaching at a Title One school is that TEST SCORES MATTER, which I'm sure has become the case almost everywhere. Currently, we are the AYP situation where we have to make it this year or we will be in corrective action. So, this can be frustrating at times and it also puts a lot of pressure on both kids, parents, administration, and of course teachers!

So far in my two years of teaching, I have taught math inclusion, language arts inclusion, math resource, and language arts resource. I have had the privilege of using promethean boards in both my math inclusion and language arts inclusion classes. I have been trained in Corrective Reading, Language!, and Reading Foundations. For the past two years I have taught Language! in my Language Arts resource classes.

The school that I work at would be considered an "inner city" school. We would be considered a melting pot because of all of the different ethnic groups that we serve. Because of this there are many different cultures that I have learned about and what is important to one group of people may not be important to another group. Also, some parents are very much involved in their child's education while others do not think education is that important. Pretty much, I am excited about this class because I think that I could definitely apply what I learn to my everyday teaching.

Katy Dellinger

Hello Everyone. My name is Michelle Moffitt. I am married and I have two teenage daughters. I have been teaching kindergarten for 14 years. I have just finished my first two semesters in the masters of reading program at ASU. I graduated from Mars Hill College with a degree in elementary education. I am a national board certified teacher and I will begin renewing my certification next year. The school I teach at is a large elementary school. We have over six hundred students in grades k-5. It is a title one school and we have a diverse population.
I love to read. I enjoy reading many different types of books. I look forward to my summer vacation so I can catch up on my reading while sitting by the pool or at the beach. I have never been a big writer, but I can usually express myself better in my writing than speaking. I do have a journal that I write in at various times in my life. I like to record important events and milestones in it. I really do not remember much about learning to read or write. I remember reading the famous Dick and Jane books early in school. I also remember writing creative stories in elementary school. My mom saved many of my stories and I was always told that I had a talent for writing creative stories. I was in the academically gifted program in elementary school and middle school and I took honors and college prep courses in high school. I guess I was a typical teenager that really did not enjoy reading and writing in middle and high school. When i finished college I began to really enjoy reading again.
I come from a working class family. My parents both worked. I stayed with my grandmother during the day and I rememberd that she read many books to me. There are several teachers in my family so I followed in their footsteps. My family is from a rural area. My grandmother is 95 years old now and she still tells the stories that she told us so long ago. Her stories have been passed down through my family for many years. She remembers childhood stories and games that were told and played when she was a child, and she has taught each of her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren them. The oral traditions have been passed down through the generations.
I am looking forward to this class. We touched on dialect in one of my other classes and how certain dialects are perceived in society.

Michelle Moffitt

Learning to read was a difficult task for me. I was always what teachers term a ‘slow learner.’ However, I came from an environment rich in print. Both of my parents read the newspaper nightly. My mother kept a towering stack of books by her bedside. We read together as a family every night, well into my elementary school years. By fifth grade I had a voracious appetite for books, although at that time my undeveloped tastes leaned toward the romantic fiction. Despite how much time I spent reading outside of school I hated assigned school reading, where the novels were invariable hard to relate too, difficult to read, and ended sadly. Not to mention that we would break apart and analyze every aspect of the book, thereby further draining the experience of any pleasure. Currently I teach second grade in a low income predominantly Hispanic school, and while my students are exposed to a much wider variety of interesting books, I seldom see the hunger I had at that age for reading. Reading ability is not only an integral part of education and a predictor of success in school, but a means by which every child has access to learning beyond their own life circumstances. I am passionate that my students find a love of literacy, if for no other reason than I know they will be learning long after they leave my classroom.
Rebecca Ashby

I am Amy Reep. I have taught for ten years now. The last three I have taught language arts to fourth and fifth graders at Clyde Campbell. This year I am the sole teacher of all fifth grade students in the area of reading and writing. I do not like this, nor do I like teaching class in 75 minutes. I feel that there is so much pressure to get the kids to pass the test, even though many are not ready to read at this stage. This is the first year in which I have truly taught students at their ability level, which means for some second and third grade. After taking other graduate courses I understand how important this instruction is.
I have always loved reading, and was taught to read by my mom before I started kindergarten. I was always the sneaky kid in class that had my book tucked inside the textbook to make it look like I was paying attention. I still love to read every chance I get. I have this corny thing where I make myself read one book a year outside my comfort zone. I feel that this is important part of growth. I am not saying that instead of fiction I may choose nonfiction. I am saying I read something that doesn't fall into my belief system or totally out of my area of interest.
I had never given much thought to writing until I had to teach narrative writing to fourth graders. I discovered that I love this. It was always my favorite part of the day. I even believe that my kids thoroughly enjoyed writing as much as I loved teaching it. That is what I miss about fifth grade. There is little to no time devoted to writing like in fourth grade, since that is when they are tested on it. I also found that I enjoyed the art of letter writing when my husband was first deployed to Iraq. There was nothing more exciting than going to the mail box and finding a letter from him. The same was true for him when getting a picture colored by our son. The art of letter writing is rapidly declining, with technology so easily assessable, but to hold the tangible piece of love in your hand is something to be cherished.
The reason I have decided to get my masters in reading is because I want students to love reading as much as I do. I want to reach those struggling students and help them finally feel successful at reading. I think that feeling confident in one area will bring more self assurance to the children, creating a better person.
Amy Reep

Hi! My name is Erin Whisnant. I live in Hickory with my family. I have been married to my husband for almost four years. I have a six year old stepson that stays with us as often as we can get him. We have a two year old Weimaraner that is like our child. He lives inside and loves to cuddle. He recently had knee surgery to repair a ruptured ACL. Our newest addition to our family is my son. He was born on April 24th. I have been fortunate to spend the last five weeks out of work with him. Life has been wonderful. Being a mother has many joys and blessing that I was unaware of until recently.

This is my fifth year teaching. The school that I work prior to this year closed due to a new school opening. My former school was a title one school where many of the students lived in low income housing and spoke English as their second language. I currently teach second grade at the newest elementary school in Catawba County. This school is not a title one school and many of the students come from upper middle class families with few speaking English as their second language. I have taught third, first and second. I completed my bachelor’s degree at UNCC. During student teaching, I was placed in a kindergarten classroom. I have been trying to get back in a kindergarten class since student teaching. I have found it very difficult due to kindergarten teachers not changing grades. We have two kindergarten positions opening up next year, so I am hopeful that my principal will move me!

I love to read. My passion for reading inspired me to attain my graduate degree in reading. This is my last class in the program. I love learning. I believe that is what makes me a great teacher. I have told my husband on many occasions that I could be a professional student, if the pay was good. Teaching reading is second nature to me. I find that my students are inspired to read when they notice my enthusiasm for reading. My goal is to return to college in two years to begin working toward a doctorate degree. I enjoy writing but find that this is one of my weakest areas when teaching. I don’t think that I am poor teacher of writing but I do think that this is the area where students progress the slowest so I feel that my efforts are not as successful as I would wish.

My name is Angie Sigmon. I am a third grade teacher at Shuford Elementary, and I am finishing my ninth year. I received my National Board Certification in 2006, and will finish the graduate program next spring. I taught third grade for eight and a half years, kindergarten for half a year, and now I am moving to second grade which I am extremely excited about. I have been married for eight years and have two beautiful daughters (2 and 6).

Literacy has always been a huge part of my life. My parents have always been big readers. In the house I grew up the whole back wall of our den had shelves filled with books. I have always enjoyed reading. When I was younger my parents would be looking for me and they would always find me somewhere curled up with a book.

As an adult I read every night. I can’t say that I read the “good books”, but I definitely enjoy reading. I was reading Jodi Picoult’s books, but found myself becoming too emotionally involved. As a teacher and a mom I find myself with a full schedule, so I like to read to take my mind somewhere besides the many many things I need to get done. I have been reading Tori Spelling and Jen Lancaster books. I can relate to many experiences Tori Spelling has had as a mom and I find Jen Lancaster’s books to just be hilarious.

As a teacher I am extremely interested in word study and guiding reading groups. As I take classes in the graduate program I feel that I am finally getting an understanding of how children learn to read. I am fascinated by the research that is out there about how children learn to read best and then what schools are actually choosing to incorporate in their schools. I am looking forward to next year and incorporating all the great things I have learned over the past year.

All About Meredith

Hello, my name is Meredith and I am currently teaching kindergarten in Catawba County, North Carolina. I have been a teacher for five years, two in kindergarten and three in first grade. I graduated from Appalachian State University in 2005 with a Bachelors Degree in Elementary Education. After teaching for 3 years, I decided to start the master’s program in reading. I love to read as well as teach children how to read. There is such a great feelings inside when a child picks up a book for the first time and begins to read; the feeling of pride and accomplishment takes over. With the completion of my graduate work in August, I plan to go on to get my Doctorate. I want to educate rising teachers how to teach reading to their students, because I feel I came into teaching with little knowledge of how to teach reading, and did not fully learn until I began the Master’s program.

Growing up I was read to daily by my sister, mom and dad. Each night before bed I remember having stories read to me, a lot of the time the same story. If whoever was reading to me skipped a part in the story I would let them know they were not reading it correctly. My parents strived to me the importance of reading and a good education. They wanted me to be the best person I could be and go as far as I could in life. As I grew up I loved to read, and then that love dwindled away when I went to college. I did not enjoy reading things that were not of interest to me; things I was told I had to read. Throughout college, I cannot recall reading one book for pleasure, because I was always bogged down with other assigned readings. After college I began reading again and really enjoyed picking up a good book, and getting lost for hours in it. I recall nights where I would be so caught up in the story I was reading that I would be jarred from it when my alarm would go off to start the next day. As I’ve grown as a teacher, I now enjoy reading books that help me to become a better teacher. I try to attend as many credited workshops to help bring new ideas into my classroom, and I strive to revamp my teachings as often as necessary to help each student.

Now that I am teaching, I try my best to read to my students as often as I can. I will reread one story over and over because the children love it and beg for it to be read to them again. When picking stories for my class I take into consideration what they want to read, and try to meet the interest levels of all my students. As a kindergarten teacher, a lot of my students came to me at the beginning of the year with little knowledge of books. This saddened me, and I have tried hard to get them to have a love for reading as I did when I began school.

I truly believe reading is the foundation of all things in life. You read to learn, explore, and enjoy, and if you cannot read you will truly be lost in life. I cannot teach everyone in the world to read or to even love to read, but I can do the best I can with the people I meet and teach. If I can get one child loving books, then I have changed that child’s life for the better.

Meredith Bromley

My name is Natalie Enns and I am currently teaching 1st grade at Easton Elementary School in Winston Salem. I am completing my 3rd year as a teacher and I love it.
I graduated from Western Connecticut State University with my Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education in 2007. After teaching for 2 years I decided that it was time to further my education and this past January, started taking classes towards my Master’s in Education. I think that teaching reading is the most important thing that you can teach to a child. In my school so many students come from a non- English speaking background so for them reading is a struggling. I find so much joy when a student comes to be not being able to read, and when they leave at the end of the year has made so much growth in reading!

As a child I read by the time I was 5 years old. My parents instilled in me a love for reading and we read all the time. I read during the school year and then we had to read during summer vacation. My mom and dad both worked. My mom worked out of the house and would always find time to listen to me read. One thing that she would do was I had to tell her what my book was about when I was done. I couldn’t just say “mom I’m done”. She’d say, “Ok now tell me about it” and I’d have to tell her what I read about. During the summer my mom would pay us 1 penny for each page that we read as an “allowance” for the summer but in order to get that money we would have to tell her what we read about. That taught me how to read and understand what I am reading instead of just read. I still love to read and when I am in a good series (whether fiction or non-fiction) I could get lost in it for hours. I remember reading to a kindergarten aid during free time and I loved it! I loved that someone would take time out of her day to just listen to me read “Dick and Jane”. That has always stuck with me during my time as a teacher. I love to find time in my day to let a child just read to me for fun and they love it as well!

I find that teaching reading is a difficult thing for me to do. I find that my students can “word call” but when I ask them what they read about, they have a very hard time articulating that to me. I am learning more and more how to teach them good comprehension skills. The main goal that I have when I teach reading is for my students to walk away with a love for reading. I try to instill in them a love and a passion. We read all sorts of genre in 1st grade, and I try to get them to pick what they like reading the most. The greatest joy I have is when my students have some time after they are done with their centers or during a rainy day when we can’t go outside, and I look over in the library and I see students reading and interacting with each other about what they are reading. To me, that is what teaching is all about!

Natalie Enns

My name is Katie Templeton, I am currently teaching Kindergarten at Shuford Elementary and will be moving to first grade next year. This is my ninth year teaching, I taught third grade for two years and have taught Kindergarten for seven years. I received my National Board Certification in 2006 and will be finishing up my Master’s next May. I have been married for 8 years and have two little girls, Sydney who is five and Riley who is three.
Reading has always been a huge part of my life ever since childhood. I can’t remember a time when my mom had a spare moment and she wasn’t reading. My mom was also a teacher so reading for both information and enjoyment was a big part of our family. I find myself passing on the same beliefs with my daughters. I love to see them getting just as excited over a new book as they do a new toy.
As an adult I read as much as I can. I go through phases where I am reading everyday and then I won’t pick up a book for months. I have found that in the summer when I am off from work I read constantly. I mainly prefer romance. I am a huge fan of Nicholas Sparks. Recently I have been reading autobiographies of celebrities who are around my age with children.
My main focus this year has been guided reading groups and finding ways to incorporate all of the components into my classroom. With Kindergarteners sometimes it is difficult to implement what I am being taught simply because Kindergarten is a completely separate entity from any other grade level. I am looking forward to going to first grade next year so that I can hopefully continue to improve on what I am learning about guided reading and also be able to do activities where I can work with a small group and my other students can work independently on word study and writing.

Hi! My name is Clyde and I teach pre-kindergarten at Northwood Elementary in Guilford County. I have taught pre-k for eight years. I began my teaching career in kindergarten and spent a little over nine years in that grade before quitting. I then finished the last three months of a school year in a second-grade class. Like some others have posted, I have my National Board Certification as an Early Childhood Generalist. I successfully renewed it a couple of years ago and it was so much easier than the initial process.

An unusual hobby of mine is collecting anything pertaining to hippos. I currently have over 200 items in my collection.

One of my big passions is traveling. If I have the opportunity to hop on a plane, I do it! I have been to Australia, New Zealand, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, China, Canada, Mexico, and many states within our own country. My favorite place to travel over the past several years has been Denver, Colorado. I’ve been there eight times – three of those being within the past year.

As mentioned in the title, I am gay. It took me a long time to come to grips with that fact based on my conservative upbringing, but I now see my sexual orientation as an integral part of who I am. You may be wondering why I bring that up in this introduction to the class, but I see it fitting in with the topics of race, class, and gender that this class is scheduled to cover. During my years as a student, I do not remember seeing anyone who was gay portrayed in the literature being read in my classes. It was not until I was out of school that I found out that such literature was out there.

Another reason I mention my sexual orientation is that it greatly affected my development in the language arts. Because I was “in the closet” and afraid to voice my innermost thoughts, I developed a preference for listening over speaking, especially in groups. I was always afraid to offer my opinions because I didn’t want to say something that others might disagree with (such as the subject of homosexuality), thus causing them to dislike me. Also, I developed a strong preference for writing because this mode of communication allowed me the opportunity to carefully consider my words before responding, unlike with speaking. I considered this to be a much safer alternative. Lastly, I grew to love books because they offered me an escape. Through reading, I could be someone else and experience new places and things that, otherwise, would be unavailable to me.

While growing up, I was a good reader and was always in the top reading group in my class. I had a peculiar habit of reading books upside-down, which I remember getting in trouble for in fourth grade. Unlike others have mentioned, however, I did not see a lot of reading done at home. My mother always read the Bible in her bedroom before going to sleep and my dad would read the newspaper. That was about it. There were not a lot of books in my house, either, but I do remember being able to check books out from the church library, the school library, and the bookmobile that came during the summer months. Some of my favorite books were part of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew collections.

My decision to enroll in the master’s program in reading education involved an experience I had with a second-grade student at my school. His dad asked me if I would tutor the child. I told the dad that I would do it, but as I worked with the child more and more, I realized that I really did not know how to proceed with him past a certain point. From teaching pre-k and kindergarten, I knew a lot about teaching letters, their sounds, etc., but I was not very familiar with what I should be doing with a struggling second-grader. After a month, the child’s parents had him tested at Sylvan and the director there recommended that he should receive tutoring two or three times a week. I told the parents I could not commit to that amount of time so they began having him tutored at Sylvan. The experience left me with the desire to know what to do with students beyond what I do with my pre-kindergartners in their endeavors to learn how to read. I don’t feel this was something that was adequately addressed in my undergraduate work to become a teacher.

Clyde Rice

Hello fellow students in Race, Class, and Gender! I am Angela Steele, a member of the Appalachian State University Class of 2007. I have been married to my husband Chris for 5 years, we live in Lenoir. My teaching career began three years ago at Whitnel Elementary. I spent two years in 2nd grade and this year I taught 3rd grade.

As a child I remember being surrounded by books. My mom is an avid reader and any free time she had I saw a book in her hand. My mom read to me nightly. Stories I remember are those from the Bible and the Golden Books.

Throughout my early school days, I was a good reader, but did not enjoy the task independently. In elementary school, reading seemed to chore rather than enjoyment. I read the Saddle Club Books and the Baby Sitter's Club books. I grew up riding horses, so these books seemed to be a perfect fit.

I am a product of the beginnings of the age of Accelerated Reader. This limited my book selection. I was told to only choose books that I could take tests on and was bound by my grade to do so. This program stifled my wanting to read independently.

As I continued my education, I found a love for reading that extends to today. This love came from the freedom to choose books that drew my interests. After college, I was able to read things that I didn't "have" to read, but want to read. I enjoy James Patterson, Janet Evanovich, and the Twilight Series. Mysteries, suspense, and drama are what I look for in my own personal reading.

Even though I’ve been in Graduate Reading program for a short while, I feel that my views about literacy are evolving. Reading is a skill that cannot be taught in isolation. There are several layers to reading development that all depend upon one another. More than ever, I am aware of the importance of reading to students. I have taken this for granted in my brief years of teaching. Being aware of the process in choosing “quality” children’s literature has definitely impacted my teaching. Another importance is including variety in literature genre. I want to continue developing my knowledge of literacy and Reading Education.

Angela Steele

Hello, my name is Trish Edwards. I began working on my masters last summer and hope to finish next spring. I am currently teaching second grade at Piney Grove Elementary in Forsyth County. This is my second year back at teaching, since I took a seven year break to stay home with my three children who are now 12, 11 and 8 years old. Before I took my break I taught fifth grade for one year and second grade for three years. Last year I taught first grade for the first time and I learned a lot about the reading process.
At my school we use guided reading groups, so it was neat to see how much the students grew in reading. This year I continued to use guided reading groups. I also incorporated word sorts for my spelling. Word sorts were new to the parents and students, but it was very well perceived. I work at a predominately white middle class school. So, one concern the parents have is that they want their children to be challenged. I ended up with four spelling groups, which was a little challenging. I have very low level readers to those who are reading well above grade level. So, it can be a challenge to not let the low level readers get left behind. I would like to continue to learn how I can help those low level readers through guided reading and word study.
As for me, I started out in kindergarten and first grade as a struggling reader. The first two years of school were not positive ones. Things didn’t change until I entered second grade and my teacher figured out that I could not hear. I ended up getting my tonsils out and tubes in my ears. In second grade, I went from F’s to C’s to eventually A’s by the end of the year. My mom used to take me to the library during the summer. I loved to read. It was during the summer, that I grew the most as a reader, because I was reading books that I was interested in and I didn’t want to put them down. For me as a teacher, I hope to instill the love of reading and give students the necessary reading skills they need.

Trish Edwards