I have been a teacher at all kindergarten, primary, secondary and tertiary levels for a total of 29 years. At the kindergarten and primary levels I expected that my students may not know how to read and a major part of my job would be to teach them to do so; this I attempted, sometimes with success and at other times with many frustations and failures, however I continued to plod along inspite of the difficulties.
It was at the Secondary and even tertiarty levels that I was totally shock to find students with reading problems. With limited training in the teaching of reading which was geared toward the kindergarten and primary levels, I was unsure of how to solve the reading problems at the higher levels; Many of my students read orally but the comprehension simple evaded them. This often resulted in disengagement from school leading to high levels of indiscipline, absenteeism and sometimes eventual academic failure and or school dropout.
I realised that my knowledge and training was inadequate to effectively guide my higher level students to overcoming their reading difficulties.
It was during my search for a possible solution that I came across the advertisement for the Med Reading Programme and immediately thought that this could be the way to a solution for my students, so here I am today engaged in a program which I hope will continue to provide me with skills to empower my students.
Hi Ghina
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting when we think of the many reasons that have propelled us to want to become "Reading Specialists." My motivation to become such stemmed from a sense of frustration and concern when students within the higher levels of the primary school were unable to read, or even were not motivated to read. In order to help them, I started a reading club in my school, and for one day each week, during lunch time period, I would invite all the Std. 3 students to come to my classroom or the library to listen to stories being read. With the help of some of my colleagues, we would dramatise these stories and also invite students to act them out as well.They loved it. Of course we also discussed and asked questions about the story afterward or let them predict outcomes at various points during the reading of the story. Many of the students wanted to hear more than one story, but we only did one at a time.
Another activity was the playing of reading games,which they also enjoyed.