Blog Posting Totals

I have submitted 12 original posts and 11 responses to my peer's blogs as of 12/6/09.

Final Posting Response

Am I feeling more prepared to be a teacher? My answer would be absolutely! I feel more prepared than at the beginning of the semester, but I am still overwhelmed with the thought of how much more I need to learn. This semester really opened up my eyes to things that I took advantage of on a daily basis working in the classroom. I now analyze the student's lessons, abilities, interactions, and their questions more critically. I feel as if I am more aware of effective learning strategies. I also feel more confident in my abilities to eventually run a classroom of my own.
Next semester I plan to focus on curriculum, instruction, and assessment. I loved learning how to perform a spelling assessment in literacy and look forward to learning how to perform assessments throughout all subject areas. I think that the scary part of becoming a teacher is wondering what will I be teaching and how will I teach it. That is where my phobia lies. How will I get there? The only honest answer I can give is that I will attend my courses, ask questions when they arise, and hope that everything will fall into place!

"I can't read"

While at work last week, I was allowing a couple of my first graders test out one of my activities I had made for my Math and Science learning center. I gave the two girls the printed directions and the folder containing the materials. Immediately student A replies, speaking of the directions, "I can't read" and passing them to student B. Next student A says, "Well I can't read very good." I was shocked. Student A is a struggling reader and writer, but I had no clue that she would ever say those words! I immediately told that what she said is absolutely not true and that she can read. She gave me a hesitant look. I then place the directions in front of her and told her that she can read this and told her that we would read it together. I was really caught off guard by her words and cannot stand that a child feels this way. I work one-on-one with this student on a daily basis and with this experience, I am even more motivated to help this student build her reading skills.