I clearly remember the day my first grade teacher told me I could read. We had very old reading textbooks that had the picture of each character next to the lines they would say. The story was about a boy and his dog named Rocket. I remember loving the story and was excited when it was my turn to read. Later that night my family was at a local restaurant and we saw my teacher, she told my parents how proud she was of me because that day I learned to read. As I look back at that event now as an educator I marvel at the idea of my teacher boiling all of my reading behaviors down to a single day to say that was day I officially became a reader. I don’t know, I struggle with that thought. I have always loved to read, and considered myself to be a good reader. I believe that was my motivation to specialize in reading, to share my love and commitment to teaching reading to all my students. Professionally, I still struggle with vocabulary instruction. Many ideas have been presented to me throughout this program that continues to challenge my thoughts and practices and I love taking it all in to process. Reading motivation is also an area I want to continue to grow in. Many children are losing a love of reading and seeing it as a task, rather than an enjoyable experience. I look forward to all the ideas and thoughts that will be shared through this course.
Michael