The experience of completing this assignment has been a positive experience to see my personal strengthens and weakness of teaching reading to elementary age students. I learned a lot about what goes into planning reading assignments, as well as, the results of properly planned lessons plans. I also was able to take away the impact they have on student’s assessments and how a student's ability to read plays a major factor in the rest of their learning abilities because every subject will require the student to use at least one reading skill. Throughout the assignment, I was able to view my successes, failures and implications for my future classroom.

 

   Some of the success I witnessed during this assignment was seeing the student’s reading ability get stronger and stronger. With every assignment, at least one student was able to overcome an obstacle and build upon their reading skills. The class I am assigned to is an inclusion classroom and the majority of the students are below grade level. With that being said, it was a huge success in my eyes to even have the students recognize basic sight words. I saw a huge leap in the amount of sight words know by the students because of each day the students are practicing their sight words. Without knowing the basic sight words, the students wouldn’t be able to show growth in other subject areas. My favorite part of this assignment was seeing the students become more and more excited to recognize words and be able to read more AR books. During quarter one and two, the students were not meeting their AR goal because of lack of testing. Since starting in January, the students have increased their AR testing and have started either meeting their goal or becoming extremely close. To me, that is the biggest success I could have reached because the students are not only taking their AR test, but are also getting 80% or better on the test,  demonstrating comprehension of what they are reading. 

 

   Even though most of my experience showed much success, I still witness quite a bit of failures as well. With a classroom of varying educational needs, I had lots of trail and errors. I had to quickly learn that what works for one student, may not be enough for another. I had to learn to teach a skill in 18 different ways to make sure each student is learning in their own way. I had carefully planned what I thought was an easy lesson, to only realize a student who struggles may not find it as easy. There were days where I felt lost about how to help the student understand the skill for the week. Being able to document my strategies has really helped me see what I did wrong and where I could improve for future use in my own classroom.

 

   Overall, I think this assignment was a major benefit as an upcoming teacher because of the many activities. I have a better understanding of why there is so much emphasize on reading and how important it is for a student to continue to be challenged in their reading skills in order to continue to grow and develop the skills needed to be a successful reader. My hope is that I can continue to leave a positive impact on these students and my future students and continue to help students strengthen their reading abilities and grow their love of reading.