Enjoying to write

I really enjoyed reading Routman's Writing Essentials and her statement that "excellent and enjoyable writing needs to become central to the everyday life of the classroom." (pg.4).  Reading the first few chapters of her book made me feel that teaching writing can be enjoyable, not just for the students, but for myself as well.  In order for us to teach writing, we need to become writers ourselves. 

In my own experience from high school, I remember not enjoying my English class to write.  I didn't like the thought of being graded for each strict prompts that I was given.  I felt that I was forced to go down the checklist of having the "right" answers for the prompt.  I felt that I wasn't taught to enjoy writing, but a skill necessary to succeed.  I think my thoughts would have changed if I read Routman's Writing Essentials and her tips to enjoy writing in my early educational career.  I really like how Routman encourage teachers to enjoy writing themselves, which will make the teaching process more enjoyable and valuable.  It is important for us to always have an essential question in mind of "how can I teach to help our students become an effective writers and communicators?"  "How can I help them to enjoy the process?" 

I can't wait to meet my K-buddy tomorrow and work on our ELP together.  Out of the 2 visits I had with him, I noticed that my K-buddy is a great reader but sometimes he lacks confidence in his ability to read, and would just give up and say "I don't know."  I hope that tomorrow's literacy activity will help him assess his literacy ability. 

Phonics

I really enjoyed working with my K-buddy last week.  He was a little shy in the beginning, but he opened up and spoke a lot when he gave me a picture of himself with his favorite animal.  I was amazed by his ability to spell out words.  He sounded the words out and sometimes drew a picture if he felt it was too difficult to write. 

I enjoyed this week's reading.  Reading Word Identification Strategies by Barbara J. Fox, really helped me to better understand my K-buddy.  Reading the chapters on phonics and phonemic awareness helped me better understand how phonics can help their vocabulary skills and their fluency skill as well.  It was really interesting to see how chilren recognize and decode unfamiliar words.  I remember by K-buddy having difficulty writing the word "chocolate" for his favorite food.  I helped him strech the word out and I asked him to do his best in sounding the word out.  I remember he wrote "chokolat" and thought it was very interesting.  Reading Word Identification Strategies helped me a lot to better understand where my K-buddy stands in the stages of word learning.  It's really fasinating to learn how phenomenon works for our youngsters.  I am looking forward in learning more about my K-buddy's reading and writing skills and to help him improve in his literacy learning.

Reading is fun!

As I started my September experience and my dyad placement this quarter, I am now realizing how fun and exciting reading is.  When I was a child, I never realized how fun reading was.  I just thought that it was something that I needed to do. But as I think back, I remember I had those moments when I just couldn't lay a book down because I got so into it.   It's funny how I didn't realize at that time, but as a grown up now, I understnad clearly why literacy was so important for me to learn and master.   I am now being more aware of the importance of literacy in our educational system. Of course with programs like NCLB, schools around the nation are striving to raise their scores in literacy.  Literacy is crucial to the success of individuals in both their career aspirations and their quality of life. It is more than a basic reading or writing  ability, but more of how we function in society.  When we develop literacy skills, we are not just learning to read and write, but to think.  It's a form of communication and a way to appy your knowlege in one area to other areas as well. 

Life of a teacher is always on a journey to learn, so why not enjoy while you're at it?