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

Hello all,

I am in my 8th year of teaching which is a second career for me. I teach 8th grade language arts in Catawba County. I hope to finish the graduate program next spring...provided I survive this summer course load. Watching my child struggle and cry every night while trying to learn to read is why I became a teacher!

Learning to read is something I cannot recall. My mother tells me that I was reading very young, but she does not remember the age I started reading. I stayed with a private in-home sitter during my preschool years. This lovely lady had a few older children she cared for as well. Perhaps the older children read to me or even helped me learn to read. I know I always loved being read to and reading on my own. Some of my favorite books as a child were Dr. Suess books. As an adult my favorite genre is realistic fiction, and my favorite author is Nicholas Sparks.

My current interest in literacy as a teacher is helping struggling readers, more specifically, readers who have been diagnosed with dyslexia. My own child, a rising junior in high school, struggles with dyslexia which was diagnosed late in her second grade school year. Her reading, spelling and writing skills are atrocious, yet, she is extremely bright and artistically talented. As a result, much of my motivation as a teacher is to help her and other struggling readers like her.

Karen