Hello! My name is Michele S. Herdoiza and I am in Nancy Creech’s Teaching Reading Comprehension class at Wayne State University. Like Donna, this is my last class and in the fall, I will embark on my third, and final, phase of student teaching.
I’m grateful for the opportunity to have been introduced to this email group as it has proven to be a wonderful resource. Over the past week, I have been following the various discussions and the one about complacency has really provoked my thinking. Throughout my life, reading, and in turn writing, have been crucial to my success. Reading is integral to almost everything and it amazes me how many people I have come across that have little or no ability to read. Therefore, I am passionate about helping children learn how to become successful readers. When it comes to teaching reading, Mosaic of Thought beautifully sums up all of the elementary and early childhood education courses I have taken. I do not need research to tell me that the comprehension strategies work because they are exactly what have made me a successful reader. What I do not understand is why, with all the available research, the thinking and teaching in many of our schools has not followed suit and continues to follow a cookie-cutter approach when teaching children how to read. All of this brings me to my questions. When I see so many children struggling with reading and being taught in ways that only make them dislike the experience even more, why do we continue down the same path? Why or how has it become, that in the teaching profession, people with little or no experience in the classroom, or those who have been out of the classroom for years, and people not involved in education, like politicians, are the decision makers instead of the teachers in the classrooms who are the experts? If you look at, for instance, medicine, when decisions need to be made, we look to the people within the medical profession to help find the solution. Why is this not so in our profession? For those of us in school now, when we finally get a job we may not be able to implement what we have learned. What advice can you give me? I want to do what is best for the children I will teach, but as a new teacher I know I won’t have much say in the way things are done—especially if I want to keep my job. Thank you in advance for your input. Michele Wayne State University Education Student _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
