Classroom Friendly Pencil Sharpeners by far are the best sharpener out there.  I was a little skeptical at first, not believing and hand-crank pencil sharpener could do a better job than an electrical sharpener.  But let me tell you, I've sharpened close to 1,000 pencils and it was phenomenal!  When I brought it into my classroom, the students would wait in line to use the "cool" sharpener instead of the electrical one.  Perfect points every time!  Bonus: it's SUPER quiet!  Definitely worth every penny!  Visit here to find out all of the details. 

Class Reflection

As I finish up my final exam and reflecting on my growth in the class, I've realized that adolescent literacy doesn't scare me nearly as bad as it did when I began the class.  I hope that I am able to become a resource to my colleagues and school as I finish up my reading degree.  I know there is still a lot to learn and I will never know it all, but I hope to build my resources so that I am a reliable person that others can come to for help or modeling. 

Book Trailers

I have to admit, at first the book trailer seemed like a huge challenge for me.  Even though I am pretty tech savvy, I was nervous to create a movie about a book.  After tweaking it and finding the appropriate music, I was so proud of my work I showed several co-workers and family members to get their opinions.  Once getting the hang of it, I have to say it took very little time to complete.  I am looking forward to doing this in the upcoming year with my students as a new type of "book report" and publishing system for their personal writings.  Thanks to Dr. Smith for introducing this to me!

Loving Literacy

We had a guest speaker in class on Friday, Timothy Hamilton, and boy did he spark a passion for reading!  The way that books touched his soul was very inspiring.  I went into a reading degree because I wanted to further my knowledge on how to teach reading to students.  After class, I realized it's not just about teaching students to read the words on a page, but to teach them to enjoy reading and to become engrossed in the information presented to them.  This has inspired me to find the type of books students enjoy and help them to become as passionate about reading as Dr. Hamilton was in our class.  I have my summer reading list ready to start, how about you?

Making Room for Adolescent Literacy

I was watching the video from AdLit.org on making room for adolescent literacy.  A couple of points really stuck out at me. 

The first statement that hit me was when students who can't read were compared to being ill.  It was mentioned that if they don't receive "treatment" or interventions, they will not make it.  The comment of "they will not make it" really hit me.  Students who lack the reading skills will not be able to get a great job, support a family, or be a productive citizen.  What a disservice we as teachers are doing to students if we do not give them the "medicine" they need.  This also hit me because today I received some training on the DIBELS Next program and thought about how many students are at risk and need interventions. 

The second statement that stuck out at me was that teachers should not shortchange students of the literacy strategies and rush through them because of time factors.  I am guilty of rushing through a concept because it needs to be taught before the next benchmark or TCAP test.  This made me realize that it is better to equip students with 1 or 2 thoroughly taught strategies than to "spray and pray" they get a little bit of all of the strategies and not be sure how to use them. 

Although this clip was short, it had some great points!

Making Room for Adolescent Literacy

For my first blog entry, I wanted to comment on the video assigned to us for review.  The video, entitled "Making Room: The Adolescent Literacy Crisis", was something that made me feel my job as a 4th grade teacher is even more important than I thought.  While I don't teach the basics of reading, I am at the beginning of the stage where students read to learn.  I liked the point made that teachers never see the end product of teaching students to read, but that it comes many years later after students graduate by the jobs and life they have after school.  While I am working with my 4th graders, I sometimes think about how what I do will help them in 5th grade, but never as a cumulative process and how it will help them in middle or high school.  It's not only K-2 teachers that teach how to read or high school teachers' jobs to teach how to understand the content, but EVERYONE who encounters that student that can have a great affect on their reading career.