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

I don’t remember exactly when or how I became a reader.  I just remember spending hours upon hours lost in books.  I remember loving when the book fair came to school or a book order form came home.  Even now, I relish any time that I can curl up with a good book, and for a while, lose myself in another place and time.  When I became a teacher, it was this love of books that I wanted to instill in my students.

In teaching first grade for the past eleven years, I have worked with many children and have helped them learn how to read.  When I think back to my first few years of teaching, I wonder how any child managed this magnificent feat in my classroom.  It didn’t take long for me to see my primary job as a first grade teacher to be helping children build the foundation they need to be successful, fluent readers for life.  This realization caused me to look high and low for the best ways to teach reading.  However, no matter how hard I tried, there have always been a few students in my classroom each year that I feel that I just haven’t been able to reach.  This is the reason that I sought out the Master’s program in reading at Appalachian State University.

When I began this program two years ago, I found that my teaching experience had given me a firm understanding of the basics of teaching a child to read.  However, this program has truly deepened my knowledge base into not only how a child learns to read, but also in how to assess what they know and then take that information and design instruction that is appropriate for them where they are now.  It has also helped me to understand the scope and sequence of helping students become literate, so that I not only know how to teach students where they are today, I can have a long term plan for how to get them where they must go in the future.  I have been exposed to information that would help me to do this not only with young students, but also with struggling readers at all age levels.  Before this program, I never could have imagined walking into a high school and having much to offer to students at that level, but now that has changed.

I have taken what I have learned in my course work and have applied it to my classroom.  I have begun using strategies that I learned in Practicum and Seminar in the Clinical Teaching of Reading and used them with my struggling readers on a daily basis.  I have begun providing my students with differentiated spelling lists each week after learning what a difference it can make in Reading Assessment and Correction, as well as other courses.  I have found new and interesting ways to help my students build fluency and accuracy through my work in Teacher as Researcher.  The children that I have taught over the last two years have received more thoughtful and targeted instruction because of the knowledge I have gained in my coursework.  They will take their learning with them after they leave my room and will become more successful in life because of my successes in this program.

This program has given me the tools that I need to reach and teach all the children in my classroom.  I know that the road will still be rough at times, but I now have the knowledge that I need in order to help every last child that walks through my door make gains toward becoming literate.  I know that because of this program, I will now be able to give each child the gift of reading.