I have always loved writing. Ever since I learned how to write, I did it during my free time; I kept a journal of poems that I wrote all throughout elementary school, and I wrote stories in my free time about my own life and about fictitious characters I would create in my head. My dream was to write and publish a series of books like the ones from the American Girl or Nancy Drew series because they were my favorite books at the time. I was a bit of a nerd, because I remember in 8th grade skipping break time a lot of days to work on my self-assigned "mini novel." I made sure to be a part of the very small Creative Writing group that met during lunch once a week during middle school. It was my chance to share my creations with fellow students.
I think that trying to instill a love of writing in one's students at an early age is so important because writing assignments will continue for them through any level of education they attain. I'm not sure when I started to enjoy writing so much, but I do know that making students feel like they are good writers will increase their interest in the subject. I remember in 2nd grade being excited about winning a writing contest held by the school, and in 3rd grade being complimented often by my teacher about my papers. It made me want to write more and it made me feel like my writing was special. As a teacher, I hope to make all the students in my class feel like their writing is special because it is their personal creation, after all. Most of all, though, I want to to instill a love of writing in all of them and a love of the entire writing process. If I can show them that the pre-writing stage is fun because you get to use your imagination, the actual writing stage is fun because you get to develop your creative ideas, then maybe they will enjoy it.

I've liked having a blog because there is no limit to how much you can write or what you write about. The less restrictions in creativity, the better!

I'm not sure what I'm going to write my book about yet. I look forward to illustrating it, though, because I love drawing but as usual I can't decide on a topic. I considered writing about my study abroad experience, but I thought that might end up being too personal for this project!

Chances are, if a person has a disability in her reading comprehension skills, she may also have trouble comprehending basic social cues or registering a conversion quick enough in her mind. If a person has trouble simply reading or writing, it's normally no secret to the rest of her peers. In the younger grades, one's peers will take advantage of knowing anything about their peers that makes them less "normal" as everyone else; this knowledge seems to typically be used as a tool for teasing the less "normal" students, usually to the detriment of their social life. When a student feels weird, or dumb, or at the pit of all the jokes, her social skills may suffer if she chooses to alienate herself from the majority of her class to get away from teasing or feeling less apt. Having a problem reading or writing at the level of students' peers can affect their social skills when they aren't given opportunities to develop them with others their age.

In the 1st grade class that I am assisting in right now there is a child named Andrew who has autism. Autism as a disability has an affect on Andrew's ability to pick up social cues, but the fact that all of his classmates know he is somewhat "slower" than everyone else, and that he requires extra attention does not help him to have much of a social life. Furthermore, during center time he usually needs to sit by himself at a desk so that he can focus on his work since he is known to easily become distracted; this alienates him from the social interactions that Vigotsky theorizes are vital for one's learning development.
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As a teacher, I can make sure to include activities during class time that encourage social interaction with everyone in the class. I can make sure call on every student during lessons, as well. To build a positive environment, I can do activities like the one that my 1st grade mentor teacher does every Friday afternoon with her students. She has them gather in a circle on the floor and each take turns either "getting" or "giving" a compliment. They are asked to choose when it is their turn, and if they choose to "get" one, then the person who is "it" gets to choose a person holding their hand up to give them a compliment. In Mrs. Renigar's class, they are all very eager to compliment each other, even the less social students like Andrew, and the bully of the class, Sam. Anything that encourages students to interact with one another in a positive manner is great for teaching good social skills.

I have a terrible memory, so I do not remember a whole lot from my elementary school years as far as learning is concerned. I remember that my worst subject was spelling and it still is--I am no good at spelling. This leads me to the conclusion that I must have been taught to spell phonetically, and never was corrected when I continued to spell that way in my upper elementary school years. Right now I am working in a 1st grade classroom and when I first came to Ms. Renigar's class last semester I was shocked because I didn't realize that the students were aloud to spell pretty much every word incorrectly on their assignments. They would all write the words phonetically. Now that they are in 2nd semester of their 1st grade year, Ms. Renigar always has spelling books out for them to look up words they are trying to spell and she stresses the importance of spelling them just right. I feel like this is what I missed out on in my elementary school years. The outbreak of spell check on the computer when I entered middle school didn't help either--I just typed everything and have been doing that ever since. When I have to write something entirely in hand, that's when I'm in trouble. I mostly blame an over reliance on the computer for my lack of spelling ability, rather than teachers. I feel like it will be important in whatever grade I end up teaching to make sure student's hand write their assignments and are corrected every time something is spelled wrong.

The Reading Process

Aesthetic reading is reading that is pleasing to a person's senses and it is usually the most appealing type of reading because it is purely enjoyable. Efferent reading is reading that allows a person to acquire information, or to read for the purpose of understanding the story rather than to become a part of the story while reading. Obviously, a purely aesthetic stance when reading is most appealing, however most of the time there is a balance between the two. I love to read aesthetically, but I have not in quite a while because I am so busy reading the books assigned to me in class and even at my job (I have to read about sporting goods and take tests on what I read!) Needless to say, I miss reading for fun and cannot remember the last time I was really able to throw myself into a book and understand the feelings and thoughts of the characters.

There are five stages of the reading process. 1) Pre-reading involves simply becoming informed of the background of the book and creating a purpose for the reading. An example of this would be to read a little bit about evolution before reading an argument against the theory of evolution and for the theory of creationism. 2) Actually reading the text comes next. This can be done through a buddy system, independently, through shared reading, guided reading from perhaps the teacher, or by listening to someone read it aloud. It is important to read any diagrams, charts, or illustrations as well since they too contribute to the text. 3) After reading is responding. A person can respond in reading logs, or through discussion with either classmates and/or the teacher of the classroom. The discussions can be guided or unguided, probably depending on the type of learners in the classroom. 4) Following the response, a person should explore. This involves pondering the text more deeply, participating in mini lessons, and learning any vocabulary words that weren’t familiar before. 5) And finally, once a student has learned something from the text he should apply it to new experiences. He can create a project based on it, connect it with related books, or simply use what he learned in every day situations.

It is important when developing a capable reader to develop his fluency skills, his vocabulary database, his word identification skills, and his reading comprehension. To improve fluency skills, a teacher should have the students read at their reading level, rather than below it or too far above it. Teachers should also introduce key vocabulary words before reading to build a background, and after once she sees ones that were difficult. Word walls also work great to develop vocabulary. Furthermore, for comprehension, discussions and writing and creating projects are wonderful ways to make sure the student comprehends what he is reading.

There really are no rules to reading as long as one takes in the information. A person can take the information in and not gain anything from it, but that wouldn’t have any benefit to the reader and would end up as a waste of time. A good teacher is able to bridge the gap between aesthetic and efferent reading in a way that both provides students with the knowledge they need, but also allows them to enjoy the process of reading it.