Literacy is my passion.
My site is dedicated to sharing teaching tips for all areas of literacy-phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing for grades K-8. I love sharing resources with teachers, and it makes me happy to help take a little off the overflowing platters of teacher duties.
What Matters to Me
I absolutely loved teaching and connecting with my school kids who became an extension of my family. The stories they shared with me about their life adventures and their enthusiasm about the books they read motivated me to do my best for them, and I really enjoyed sharing resources I created and stories I wrote with them. My hope was always that they would see how much I love to write and imitate me in the future. These classroom pictures are from my last year of teaching.
My Classroom Library
The place I loved most in my room was always my classroom library. It took me a LONG time to gather up all my books, and I love that they got LOTS of use with children. I’ve always enjoyed sending takehome books during the school year as well as bags over the summer because many of my kids didn’t have access to books except those they borrowed from school. Last week, I took five bins of books to two brand new teachers in Title 1 schools. It made me so happy to share them, and I’m glad those books are back in hands of children
Transition to Coaching
In my last year of teaching, I moved from intervention to coaching, and I really enjoyed it. I missed working with the same children every day, but still, I got to team teach quite a bit in different grade levels, and honestly, one of the things I loved about coaching is sharing resources and ideas with my colleagues.
When I completed the Masters of Reading Education program through the University of Virginia, the final course was Elementary Reading Programs. The content focused on developing your school reading program and coaching teachers. It was shortly after completing this program that I began blogging. The vision I had for my blog was to sort of “Cyber Coach”. I don’t think that’s a real word, but if it were, I’d define it as sharing ideas to mentor colleagues and new teachers without imposing on them. I think there are many teachers who truly want to learn new ideas or techniques, but may not feel comfortable reaching out and asking for assistance. On the contrary, there are many amazing teachers out in the big wide world that know different ways of doing things when what you’ve tried hasn’t worked. One of the best things about social media and blogging has to be how it’s helped us learn and connect with knowledgeable teachers. After all, many hands make work light, right! If you want help with ANYTHING, shoot me a message and ask OR join the Facebook group All Things Literacy with Comprehension Connection.
My Family…
When I’m not involved with designing curriculum and blogging, I am off enjoying time with my family. In addition to our two kiddos, we have two fur babies named Molly and Luna. Here is a picture of my crew from a hike last year. We love playing board games, movies and traveling.
If you have made it this far, congratulations! Until next time, happy reading and come back soon!
