READING BELIEFS

As a small child, my parents read to me. In fact, my father bought a special book of Bible stores to read. He read to me nightly until he was sent to Korea. My father grew up in a rural setting in Kentucky and my mother on a farm in eastern North Carolina. Both of them came from families of education. My father’s father was a teacher and my mother’s mother was also a teacher. Reading was highly stressed in both families. My father went to school as a young man and became a teacher before entering the war. My mother went to a small school where she became a secretary. Reading was stressed in my family because both of my parents wanted the best education for their children. I grew up in a family who moved quite often as my father was in the military. During the times my father was overseas, my mother, sisters, and I would visit my grandparents. I do remember my grandmother reading. She would sit down after her lunch and read the Bible. I would sit on the floor beside her and listen as she read.

I cannot recall how reading was taught to me in elementary school. Maybe by phonics, who knows, it’s been so long ago. I do remember the readers that were used with the characters, Dick, Jane, and Spot. See Dick, See Jane, Run, Spot, run! As I grew older, I enjoyed reading Nancy Drew books, which were popular in my time.

After graduating from high school, I attended a junior college and received an Associates degree in Administrative Secretarial Science. I worked for 15 years in public service. My boss’s wife, an English teacher, gave me some wise advice when our first child was born. She said to read to him every day and he would greatly benefit from the experience. I took that advice to heart and had the great opportunity to see it work through my own sons. A job change for my husband relocated us to another city. I did not work for several years because I felt that I had missed out on raising my two sons. When my sons were in elementary school, I volunteered several days a week helping teachers with students that needed one-on-one reading. I then went to work in a pre-school environment. After working in this environment for several years, I came to realize that I could make a difference in some child’s life by being a teacher.

I entered the college setting again to obtain my degree in education. I graduated after 4 years and received my certification to teach. During the time that I was going to school I still had the time to be involved with my sons’ educations. We would read and study together which presented a great role model situation for both. Both of my sons are very successful in school. The eldest is a junior at Davidson College and the youngest is a junior in high school. The two have achieved excellent grades and are very fluent readers. Though they do not enjoy reading, they know that without the skill they would not be where they are today. If not having the skill to read, I would not be where I am today. I still try to recreate that role model situation by reading with and studying together with my classroom students.

Reading is necessary to survive in the world. We must learn to read to communicate our needs to others and protect ourselves from dangers that are not apparent. Learning is a process of behaviors in which we obtain by observation or modeling. Small children learn from their parents by observation and the modeling that is taken place in the home. I believe that it is the teacher’s role to build on or change the behaviors that children bring into the classroom.

As a student in college, I was taught that we go through different stages of learning. The first basic stage is acquisition. In the stage of acquisition we learn a particular behavior, which we acquire by either observation or modeling. We build on these behaviors until the behaviors become fluent. After the behavior becomes fluent, we move into a stage of the learning process of maintenance. In the maintenance stage of learning, we perform the behaviors without prompts or cues - a natural instinct. After the behavior has become fluent and maintained we can move into the generalization stage of learning. This stage of learning is helpful when we are presented with behaviors that are similar to what we already know or as teachers call the prior knowledge. The last stage of learning is adapting all the behaviors we have learned and modify the behaviors to new situations and environments.

Reading is a stage of learning acquired in a school or home environment. Many students that I come in contact with do not have the first stage of learning when they first enter school. A good example is that of my current students. She comes from a home whose father is illiterate and a mother who is deaf. Most of my students have not been exposed to books, newspapers, etc. in the home to acquire the behavior or skill of reading.

Reading to small children at an early stage in their life fosters the belief that the child will have a greater chance to succeed in school and life. I strongly believe that reading is very crucial to a child and should begin at home. As I stated earlier, I was once told by an English teacher many years ago to read to my children and they will be more successful in school. I did read to my children and today both of my boys are outstanding students.

Reading is a process by which we translate written symbols into words and obtain a meaning from the sequence of words. Reading is a process of gaining knowledge of and practicing written language. Reading is a must in order to function in society and the inability to read hinders a person’s ability to survive in society, like reading a recipe to cook or reading street/information signs.

I believe that teaching students to read begins with the basics of letter sounds. The phonics-based approach is an efficient method to use with students who do not have the prior knowledge. In the five years I have been teaching I have had a greater success with the use of the phonics methods for students who come to the classroom with little or no prior knowledge of books or print. Teaching the students the letter sounds and vowel sounds increases the skill of reading Even though the students are not fluent readers at this level, they become familiar and more comfortable with reading. As a student progresses in their reading performance level, they learn to maintain and generalize the skill to move to a higher level and become fluent readers. I believe that breaking down the skill into small steps provides the student with a comfort level that is easily available for them.

Not all students have the same learning style. Fluent readers need a more holistic strategy to achieve the level of performance that the teacher is seeking. Non- fluent readers need more of a phonics strategy to help them achieve the level of performance in order to generalize that skill or behavior. I teach three (3) tips for reading words and phrases to students. The first step may involve an unfamiliar word. The student is to skip the word that is unfamiliar and finish reading the sentence. If the student does not know what the word is by finding clues from other words in the sentence, the next step is to sound the word out. If sounding the word out does not help the student, then the student is to ask the teacher. The majority of my reading students need that extra boost to get them back to the reading competency level. Most of my students use the tips when reading silently, and then reading aloud they get help from others.

Reading circles and shared readings are great strategies that help students to become more familiar with unknown words. Peer reading is another strategy that helps students that are not fluent readers and gives them more confident when reading aloud.

When teaching comprehension skills, I first introduce new words and their meaning. When the student has mastered the new word and the meaning, then the comprehension skill becomes much easier for them to grasp the meaning of what was read. Thinking maps, such as bubble maps, flow maps, etc.; are good sources for breaking down into smaller steps. Using the thinking maps the students will have more of an idea of what they have read and grasp the meaning. Another useful strategy is having the students draw pictures of what they have read in order to show what they have comprehended.

Students who need more hands on learning use spelling cubes and letter tiles. Developing a word wall will help with students who are visual learners.

Writing skills are very difficult to teach. I find that each of my students will start a sentence with the word she, he, or I. I have not really found a good strategy to help me with this. I am still searching for a good answer. Writing skills are mastered when the student has the whole understanding for what they have read and how to put that understanding on paper.

With all said and done, teaching reading and writing begins in the home where the child/children are taught that behavior either by observation or modeling from parents. Teachers are in place so that they can reinforce the skills of reading and writing to children. With the ability to read and be fluent readers, children will be able to adapt and modify these skills in new situations and environments.