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Nursery Rhymes and Children's Anthologies
My grandmother sent children's anthologies every birthday and Christmas. I would challenge myself to memorize my favorites, which made reading interesting at an early age. -
Reading Rainbow
Every morning, before I went to kindergarten, I would watch Reading Rainbow. LaVar Burton made story telling fascinating to me. I realized that reading is not only the ability to sound out words, but to tell the story in a way where you can feel the characters emotions. -
Between the Lions
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubH4LDcKRyE]
Another television show I watched as a child. They made phonemic awareness and spelling patterns easy and fun to understand and visualize. -
The Spiderwick Chronicles
I was not interested in reading during most of my elementary school days. My fourth grade teacher sat me down and asked me what I was interested in and I could not answer. I did not know it at the time, but she took it upon herself to get to know me. Then, she handed me this book. She thought I would be interested in The Spiderwick Chronicles. I would have never picked up this book on my own and she was right, I loved it and still do. -
Sunrise Library
My father would take my sister and I to the public library. I had my own library card and this taught me how to be responsible and appreciate books more. I met other children there often and I would ask for recommendations from the staff. I believe it was here where I got a sense of community centered on reading. -
Pride and Prejudice
During my freshman year, we read Pride and Prejudice. As we read, we were to write in a literary journal. My English teacher always wrote back with feedback, both positive and critical. I learned from her notes and realized there is much more than making a simple prediction. She pushed me to look for symbolism, imagery, metaphors, and more. -
Great Expectations
I loved reading Pride and Prejudice so much that I challenged myself to read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I annotated as I read, kept notes and researched other analyses on the text to compare my metacognitive markers to others. -
Goodreads
After high school, as I went to school and work, I rarely had time to read recreationally. Goodreads is an app where you can track books you have read, currently reading, and would like to read. I was able to hold myself accountable to keep doing what I love to do. -
Family
My family is the first place I go to when I want a new recommendation. My cousins and sister have similar interests in literature. -
Teaching Fifth Grade ELA
In the beginning of the school year, my students were not very interested in reading. I took my fourth grade teachers guidance and made it a mission to help my reluctant readers. It was not easy since I have 108 students, but now that the school year is coming to an end, I am proud of the students that can't wait for the next book or come into my classroom early in the morning to share the latest book they have read.
Side note: The photo is a volunteer that came to read to one of my classes.
