Introduction and Reflection

  Hello, my name is Lana Pearson, I am a junior and I'm majoring in Early Childhood Education. It feels like I have been in school forever! I have enjoyed this past year of school, though, since I got admitted into the teacher education program.
  I used to work as a teacher's assistant and I miss working with students. I am looking forward to going and tutoring at a school on Tuesday nights for one of my other classes. I look forward to the day I have my degree and a classroom of my own!
  From Chapter 1, I learned the importance of engaging students in reading. Many times students go through the motions of reading without engagingin the process. We, teachers, need to ensure that our students experience success with reading so they don't disengage and interfere with their own learning. I also liked the quote from William S. Gray "Every teacher is a teacher of reading." (p. 13) It doesn't matter what subject you teach, you are still going to have to teach reading to your students!
  From Chapter 10, I learned that skilled readers who search for structures in a text and can readily differentiate the important ideas from less important ideas in the material. Less skilled readers won't have the awareness or ability to do this. I also learned about the many different graphic organizers that my students can use to help them learn and comprehend the text they are reading.
  From Chapter 2, I learned about the difference between printed text and electronic text. I believe using blogs, wikis, voki, etc. in my classroom will help to excite my students so they will want to learn. I found a lot of useful websites I can use with my students.
  In the few short weeks we have been in school, I have learned a lot of new and useful information that I can take and implement in my future classroom. Things have a changed lot since I was in school. Technology is big and I know it isn't going away so I need to learn as much as I can about it. If I don't teach my students how to use the new technology then I am doing a disservice to them. Of course, this will also depend on the technology that is available at the school where I work.