Day 4 of training

Today was rough for me because I woke up with a horrible headache, which only intensified throughout the morning and afternoon. However, I still really enjoyed both speakers. Although I feel that I got a great background on teaching reading in my undergraduate program, it was nice to get another perspective on it. I also really enjoyed the video of the student reading and am looking forward to viewing the other students reading on the video and discussing what should be done (or what was done since the studens were taped) to improve fluency and automaticity. The comment that I found to be most interesting was when we were told that we should not feel sorry for the students we will be working with or feel guilty about the sheltered lives we may have grown up with; but instead we should focus our energy on leveling the playing field. I know that in my past experiences in schools, I often spent a lot of time at home thinking about my students and feeling sorry for the difficult lives many of them led. I think that a challenge and goal for me in this program is to try to push those thoughts aside and instead spend more time brainstorming ideas to give these students the skills they need to learn and to succeed!