Literacy

This blog is ultimately supposed to share my thoughts, opinions, and beliefs on literacy and share my philosophy of teaching.

When looking back through my posts, I realize that I have hit a lot on my past, why I want to be a teacher, and my own experiences with literacy and English, but I have not mentioned too much about my own view of literacy and what it means to me.

When I was younger, I lived in England and we had specific times of the day for different subjects, we had mathematics, science, history, P.E, and literacy. From a young age, I already knew the word
"literacy" and associated it with English.

I have since taken two classes called Literacy and several classes which were English.

I have learned that literacy is a lot more than just reading and writing. It is a lot to do with comprehension, pronunciation, spelling, understanding, and more, on top of reading and writing.

I personally struggled with my literacy skills as a child and found it hard to comprehend what I was reading, and so I feel as though I can really relate to young children who struggle and dislike reading.

Once I had discovered my struggles and knew how to fix them, I found a new love for reading and English. I read book after book, I took spelling test after spelling test (for fun that my parents created), and I wrote so many stories and told everyone I wanted to be an author. I was absolutely in love with English and would jump at the chance to go to the library or read.

Because of my experiences, I want to help my future students to uncover any struggles and develop a new love for English/Literacy just like I did. Literacy is fun, it can reach all ages and interests and is continuous (there are so many books out there that can be read).

Literacy is a big aspect of life and so I know as a teacher that I want to set aside time each day for students to read and/or write and help them fall in love with literacy.

Thank you for sharing this journey with me as I have blogged. I hope it can spark some memories of your childhood in school and perhaps you will be encouraged to find a new love with literacy like I did <3

Welcome

Welcome

A little about me:

I am Abby Harrop, a 21 year old, British-American resident, pursuing my dream of becoming a teacher. I have 1 brother, Edward (22), and 2 sisters, Laura (18) and Sarah (15). I am engaged to be married the summer of this year (2015) and I am really looking forward to it. I have 3 cute, cuddly, and perfect cats (Pepsi, Sprite, Lucy), and a sassy, fun, adorable hedgehog (Hazyl).

Many things have shaped me into the person that I am today and inspired my dream of teaching. This blog is dedicated to my life so far and a reflection over how I have managed to become "Abby Harrop".

Struggles with English (back in the day)

When I thought about doing this blog I was initially uncertain as I have never been the best writer. It made me think back to when I was in year 4 in England, which is the equivalent of 3rd grade in America. I had the BEST teacher ever. His name was Mr. Rawbone. He was funny, always making me laugh, he challenged me a lot, kept me on my toes, and taught me so much that I still remember to this day. I had him as my main teacher and all of the classes we switched for (English, Mathematics, Science, and History) except from Mathematics.

I loved history, art, music, science, P.E with him, but I did not enjoy English. He was a good teacher, I just struggled a lot. It was that year that Mr. Rawbone was able to narrow down and find out why I was struggling with English. I had always been able to read through books and I was a professional speller, but I found the subject of English itself to be a challenge. The thing he found out, was that I struggled with my comprehension which ultimately affected my work.

I remember that I was given a piece of writing that was a very formal, traditional, and old, and my task was to rewrite it so that it was more modern and interesting. We were able to edit and change things throughout the story, but we had to keep to the story as much as we could. This sounds like a really fun, interesting task, I may even do something similar in my future classroom, but I remember it causing me a lot of trouble. Instead of looking at the story as a whole, I decided to look at each word and change it to sound more modern. Yes, I changed the story word for word, even the simplistic words such as chair to bench or couch. I could not even imagine Mr. Rawbone's thoughts as he started to read, understand, and grade it. It was very all over the place and had he read it all the way through, I am not even sure if it would make sense or not.

This was an indicator to him that I was struggling. He sent some homework and worksheets home with me that week to see where I was with my comprehension. These required me to read various passages and then answer questions about what I just read. When I first started, I skimmed through the passage and was unable to answer the questions. I then looked at the questions and searched until I found the answers to the questions. This is obviously not the right way to do it. I read the passages through, was able to answer the questions, but had no idea what had happened throughout the passage. When I went back the next week, I proudly turned in my completed worksheets ahead of the deadline he had given me. We were both very pleased. During a work time later that day, he pulled me aside, told me I had done a great job on my worksheets, and asked me to tell him what happened in the passages. I was stumped. I had no idea. I told him what I knew but was unable to tell him all that I should have been able to. He then gave me another passage and asked me to work on it with him. He was then able to see what I was doing and understood my struggle with comprehension.

Once Mr. Rawbone, my parents, and I understood, I was able to work on it, and make noticeable improvements. I picked up a simple book from my bookshelf and decided to read it. I read it, but this time instead of rushing through it like I usually had done, I spent my time reading closely. I often read sentences several times and I highlighted any words I did not know or sentences I did not understand to ask my parents about. This was the start of my love for reading and writing!

I read book after book. I also started to write a lot more creative stories. In my spare time, I would write a story about rescuing a giraffe caught in some trash that was in a tree, how I went to the moon, and many more. I even wrote in a bibliography, that we did in class, that when I grew up I wanted to be an author and publish books.

Mr. Rawbone did not just ignore my bad modernizing story, but took it into his own hands to make sure he knew what I was doing wrong and did not stop until he knew the answer. He cared about every single one of his students individually and would do anything he could do to help us succeed. He has been a large contribution to my decision to become a teacher. I hope that one day I can help any students who might be struggling to find out the issue and bring out new love for the subject just like he did for me. I had a new love for English after having him as a teacher, so much that now in my future today, English is one of my minors in college.

"Abby, why did you want to become a teacher?"

Today I was asked, "Abby, why did you want to become a teacher?" I get asked this by a lot of people who hear that I am majoring in Elementary Education, and I wish I could tell the story to them in depth, but there usually is not enough time. A lot went into my decision to become a teacher and I am thankful for all of those events.

I have always been a really big family person. I love spending time with my family. Every Saturday night we would get some candy, sit on the sofa, and watch X-Factor and Doctor Who together, every Sunday we would wake up and go to church together. I loved all of my family and knew I could always rely on them. I was the second oldest but the eldest girl out of my siblings and so I really enjoyed helping my mum. I would walk my sister around the block to put her to sleep, I would grate cheese every night, I would make a cup of tea every time she needed one, and I used to help her when she looked after other children. My mum would sometimes look after people's children if they needed a break or a night out, just like we would go to her friends' houses when they went out for a night. One certain time my mum was looking after a little boy called Daniel. His mum was having a rough time because of some disabilities and behavior problems he was having, so we offered to have him for a while. He came over and I loved looking after him. He knew me from church and so he really opened up to me.

We took him to an appointment and while we were in the waiting room he was misbehaving, so my mum asked me to distract him. I was able to do this and I taught him some skills from books and the toys they had laid out. When the doctor came to get him, he was very engaged with me and not responsive to the doctor (he saw the doctor regularly and did not like him), but when I told him to go with the doctor and do as he was told, he respected him and continued with his appointment. The doctor came out and told us he behaved very well in the appointment and that what I said to him seemed to change his attitude. I remember enjoying that day from the moment we took him back home that afternoon.

After we had dropped him off, my mum looked over to me and said, "You were really good with him, I can definitely see you having a future working with children." This lit up my face and sparked a little excitement for all the possibilities. I asked her what kinds of jobs work with children and as she listed them, a teacher really stood out for me. I had taught Daniel how to tie a shoelace (from a toy they had there), some more colors and shapes, and had spent time reading with him. From that day, I played "schools" with my teddy bears almost daily.

There have been other things that have influenced my decisions to be a teacher, but my time with Daniel and my mum really increased my interest of it.

I thought back to all the teachers I had had and some of them also influenced my desire for teaching. As I have said in a previous post, Mr. Rawbone was a large blessing in my life and I knew I wanted to enjoy teaching as much as he did and inspire many as he had done. He still remembered my name and made conversation with me every time he saw me until my last day at that school, he was always talked about among my friends (how much we loved him), and he had given me a new love for English, among other things.

A lot further in my life I also got some opportunities to experience teaching in a hands-on way which has cemented my aspirations of teaching even more. My junior and senior year of high school I had the opportunity to take a class called, "Cadet Teacher Academy." This was a class offered through my local technology center. It allowed me to experience the closest thing to teaching that I possibly could have been exposed to at this point in my life. My junior year I was in a 3rd grade classroom with my mentor teacher Mr. Coder. I was in his classroom for three days a week for two hours a day. During this time I helped students to read, practice their handwriting,  I taught lessons, I ran errands, and many more things. The other two days of the week I was in a classroom with classmates who were also in a class three days a week. During these days, we talked over various teaching methods, we taught to each other, and we learned a lot about the history of schools and teaching. I thoroughly enjoyed my junior year in this 3rd grade classroom that I was so excited to be able to do it again for my senior year.

My junior year was an amazing experience, but my senior year topped it off even more. I went in five days a week for three to four hours a day in a 1st grade classroom. The students addressed me as, "Miss Harrop" and they saw me as one of their morning teachers. I would do small work every morning with the same group of students but I also taught every day to the class as a whole. My mentor teacher was the best too, she gave me lots of advice and was a great role model throughout the process. I had so many fun memories, ideas, and experience from being in her classroom and working with her. I already knew that I wanted to be a teacher, but my junior and senior year were experiences that made me even more sure of my decision. It helped me to see what teaching was like day-to-day and be in the same classroom with the same students for a whole year, closely to what I will have when I have my own classroom.

I was able to sharpen my teaching and confidence with all subject areas, but especially English. Each morning when I worked with small groups, I would test students on their sight words, spelling, and comprehension. With this, I had to be able to spot where their struggles were and give them various things to work on until the next time they worked with me. I also helped a lot with the English portion of the students' curriculum. During this time and this year, students mainly worked on various sounds such as a long a versus a short a, etc. They learned these through various games, matching activities, worksheets, and more. I instructed some lessons and helped supervise others. I walked around the room and would aid students where it was needed and made sure everyone was on track. We also had students produce a research project on an interest of their choice which they loved. I feel as though I am more confident in teaching English in my future classroom and know I will enjoy the process.

I have since taken classes at Western Michigan University and had various experiences in the classroom. I am set to graduate in the Spring of 2016 and I am so excited. I am really looking forward to having my own classroom, supplies, and students to teach.

My Beliefs as a Teacher

I had to write an essay for my internship application recently asking about my philosophy of teaching and so it forced me to truly sit down, think, and decide what I believe when it comes to me teaching my own classroom. I really enjoyed the assignment and it really made things seem a lot more real.

I feel like I have been in school so long (I really have been!) that the realization that my true career is approaching is very scary but exciting at the same time. I cannot wait to apply what I believe and have learned to my own classroom.

In my classroom, I will make sure I have an individual relationship with each of my students. I want to get to know them as students; what they like, their struggles, what they look forward to, what makes them them, their strengths, and many more things. Some of my favorite teachers were those who really took the time to know me and care for me. I want each of my students to say they know that I care for them and with that all my students are there for each other. I want my classroom to be a welcoming and comfortable environment for everyone where students feel free and open to share. I want to make sure to include everyone no matter what their abilities are. Inclusion is a big goal for me. I want to meet the law of having students be in the least restrictive environment that they possibly can be in. I know it means extra work for me, but I am happy to go the extra mile, make accommodations, and figure out a way for all students to be in the same classroom. I will make adaptions to activities, I will give out tools that may help, I will allow for walks around when a break is needed; I will do whatever I possibly can to help all students succeed accordingly.

When it comes to teaching, I want to make sure that I meet as many different learning styles, differentiate, and make it as interactive as possible. Not all students are the same, so when I am planning or adapting lessons, I will make it my priority to make it interactive with a variety of learning needs for students to learn concepts. For example, if I am in an Early Elementary classroom instead of having students simply be given a subtraction and addition worksheets, I will place bags around the room that they have to calculate as inventory in pairs. There will be a set amount in the bag and a number of items needed for the classroom, their job would be to figure out how many more or less would be needed for the amount in the bags to be correct. This is visual, tactile, kinesthetic, and auditory learning so it meets many learning styles.

Another example, which I have actually used before is with teaching the concept of adjectives. Instead of simply asking students to list, write, or create adjectives to describe objects, I will ask them to walk around the room, find objects, and then write some describing words about them. I may also give them an adjective, which means their job is to find an object that has the describing word. They then have to think of other words for that object. After students have been up and around on their feet for the adjective scavenger hunt, I will encourage them to write a short story/paragraph and/or poem using the adjectives they have scavenged.

With English as a subject too, I know how important reading is, so I believe reading should be a part of students' daily lives in the classroom. I will make sure to have a story time every day in which they will be able to listen to me read and interact while listening. I also will designate specific areas for reading time each day. I think reading sometimes get a bad reputation, so when it is reading time I will allow students to pick out books of interest (within their reading level range), so it relates to them and they might even get excited to read. I also constantly pin various things I find on pinterest for reading areas. I want students to be comfortable when reading so I plan on having fun chairs, areas, and _______ for students to read in during reading time. When students are reading every day their reading scores, comprehension, and literacy will make a huge improvement.

I want to help all of my future students to succeed and so I will be willing to help them in any way that I can. I realize that I will develop more beliefs, teaching styles, and learn of things to avoid as I have more experience in the classroom, but from what I have experienced and learned I have been able to develop my own ideas/philosophies.

So to briefly recap, as a future career, I believe in creating good relationships with my students, creating a comfortable classroom atmosphere, adapting lessons to help all students in an inclusive classroom, make classes interactive with meeting as many learning styles as possible, and stressing reading time in the classroom.