About this site

This product of learning was created for partial fulfillment of the Master's Degree in Reading Education at Appalachian State University, under the direction of Dr. Woodrow Trathen. These artifacts serve to demonstrate knowledge gained while in this program of study. All artifacts are directly aligned with North Carolina DPI Teaching Standards.

Reading Education Graduate Program of Study and Reflection


Personal Statement and Reflection

While working to complete my reading Master's degree at Appalachian State I have been asked continually whether or not it is too difficult to complete my coursework while teaching.  While I have at times felt the time pressure to meet a guideline or two most people are surprised to learn that most of what I am doing for my course work is actually helping me as a classroom teacher.  Almost all of my assignments are things that I am able to work into my teaching and that help me learn how to more effectively use my instructional time.  This fact is why I feel that my time working with Appalachian has, and will continue to be, so valuable.

I decided to peruse a Master's degree in reading because I truly believe that learning to read is one of the most life-changing events in a child's life.  Learning to read affects every aspect of a child's life.  It is as if they have been given a key to unlock the mystery of the alphabetic code and thus enter the world of literacy.  Reading provides pleasure as well and is essential in all areas of life.  I  always felt such strong ties to reading and loved reading as a child and as an adult. It pained me as a teacher to see children who struggled with reading and I wanted to know why and how to help them.  Through my program I have learned so many valuable lessons on how children learn to read, why some struggle while it seems effortless to others, and how to help readers of all ability levels.

One of the most important things I take with me from this program is the idea that the reading foundation begins so early.  It is so important that children are read to and have the opportunity to play with books and writing materials long before they walk into school in kindergarten.  As a kindergarten teacher I know that children enter school  with a wide variety of experiences and knowledge; however, I did not realize at first how long it takes and how hard it is to catch up if the child has not had literacy experiences prior to school.  While I can't make up for five years of not being read to I do work to incorporate read alouds often in my classroom so that children can be exposed to the book language and joy of reading.

Another important thing I learned  through the program is that learning to read is a skill that requires a large amount of practice.  If you are going to become a basketball star you have to practice daily to become great.  The same idea is true for learning to read.  Also, not all practice is created equal.  The child must practice on their independent and instructional levels.  Reading text that is too difficult does not help children become better readers.  Because of this I have been much more diligent in my classroom.  I have started doing running records on my children (the ones that are readers) monthly to ensure that the practice I give them is appropriate.  I have reworked my literacy block schedule to have the opportunity to read with each reading group daily and also give them time to reread text on their independent level often.  I have also began using a technique that I used during my time tutoring during the practicum course.  I started using sight word boxes with my students.  After we have read a piece a few times, they children pick out three or four words from the text that they know.  They write these words on index cards and put them in their boxes.  Each day the kids go through these words and sort out ones they do not know.  This techniques has increased my student's sight word banks greatly and they really enjoy doing it.

I know that I will continue to see positive results in my classroom based on what I have learned through my Master's program.  I look forward to continuing to grow as a teacher and to using the wide variety of skills and techniques that I have acquired to open up more eyes to the world of reading.