As the year comes to a close

Just a week left, what are we to do?! Two weeks ago, I accepted a teaching position at my placement school. Yay! With some talk with the department heads, I learned that I would be teaching Tier 3 Freshman and Senior. I was given a book by one of the department heads called When Kids Can't Read, What Teachers Can Do by Kylene Beers and all I could think was "wait, when kids can't read?".  School did not prepare me for a classroom full of students who could not read. 

"Crap, What did I get myself into?" was the only thing I could think about. Talk about my privilege-- how did students get all the way to high school without knowing how to read? Sitting down, thinking about the first few weeks of school, I really got into what this book was saying. Some kids can read but their comprehension level is low, some can barely sound out words and we are expected them to read things like Romeo and Juliet which was hard enough to understand even after spending a whole semester listening to Dr. Connor talk about how AMAZING William Shakespeare is. 

This book breaks down strategies that were taught to me throughout my education but I feel like we missed the mark because we were talking about student who could read. Starting from the ground up, next year will be a challenge but a challenge that I am ready to accept. But explaining to students how to become good readers and teaching them how important it is to do these things is something that I now get to figure out. 

One thing that stuck out to me is this question "The recognize most words automatically, read fluently, vary their reading rate to match the purpose and level of difficulty, and "hear" the text as they read the words" (page 35). As a teacher I, sometimes, forget that student of my students do this naturally and there are other students who are going to struggle with this. Explaining how important this is to a student is what is going to get students excited about wanting to read. 

After telling my students about my job offer, I was EXTREMELY happy that most of my students were just as excited for me to come back next year. Remember, it is the small things in life that can make your day. I have had several students tell me throughout the semester that they have never finished reading a book: One of my success stories just finished his second novel that was almost 400 pages and was excited to start his third. This girl almost cried. The student had to talk me out of crying, actually. After telling him how proud I was of him, he told me, no one has ever told him that. Such an amazing kids -- serious tears after he walked away. This is the same kid who calls me Boss. LOL serious though, some kids are amazing if you give them a chance. 

Ms. Perret