Ever wonder why your kid is just not hanging with it...well I did not...and nowshe has problems reading...well she is not exactly my child but I did raise her when I was young... Reading and its ability does not just happen on its own...and if a child is never read to, never bought a book, never taken to a library, never taken to a book store to see how wonderous books are they will be caught up in the fast paced instantaneous gratification world of television cartoons, videos, and games...granted these all have their place and when well chosen are excellent educational tools..But they do not teach reading...

What I have noticed is some teachers have allowed themselves to be brain washed into thinking you cannot discipline a child nor must you teach them they must learn by discovery...Well I watch my niece's child now and I am not making the same mistakes I made with her because it was not good for her self esteem to have problems with reading because we were too busy playing with her as young children when we baby sat her. Kyla is going to be four soon and she knows her ABC's up to Z now and is reading books to her baby dolls...and she will even get books to be read to her...

I have bought her every play book I could not bear for her to destroy to drag around as a toy to enjoy and wear out like her favorite toys. I read to her as much as I can. Kyla has loved several books to death and my chagrin all ready by doing things like folding them backwards and dragging them everywhere but they are hers to enjoy as she pleases..better a well loved worn book than one unread on a shelf.

She is now reading books with me and sharing them with me. She especially loves the book which sits with a bunny on front and the one with the music song with it. She will read those the most. I have put Kyla in a room by herself when she will not behave which is safe, good and effective discipline for both of us. And I have taken her on every trip I can to buy anything that can be related to reading and writing.

Next weekend we will go to the library. Kyla would not have learned to love her books on her own had I not read to her, read around her, shared my love of reading, writing, coloring and painting with her...that is after all what teaching is all about..it is sharing what you love and know with all of your children...yours or someone elses....and learning from them in turn...

What I came to realize when I began teaching children is not that they were there to learn from me but that I was there for them to teach them...and in the process because I was receptive and cared I learned a great deal from them...

At USF in St. Petersburg I was taught to not accept the old misnomer that only 80% of all children can learn at best, or that ten percent will suceed no matter what you do and ten percent will fail no matter what you do...and that the 80% need to be taught good. I was taught if you ignore any of your population overall the entire population you teach suffers. You are suppose to teach beyond the object for the top ten percent and to repeat your objectives as you go along in many different ways so the bottom ten percent can achieve the goal. And that if you cannot teach them it is time for them to be evaluated and recieve special help. One student I was told by my advising teacher at at kindergarden during student teaching training at UWF was that this one child would never learn it nor make it. I kept trying a few minutes here and there, not much, with encouragining him and teaching him the objectives. I finally realized he was different, not less intelligent in fact in many ways more intelligent. He was the only child who understood abstract art and was doing it while getting graded down for not following objectives. I pointed out the shapes of the lessons in structures around us, and built him a little house out of shapes to take home after he named them...all the kids liked it so much they wanted it. Fortunately for him he was transferred to another school because his parents left and the teacher did not have the chance to fullfill her prophecy that he wouuld fail simply because she did not understand him.

This last school year I substituted in a classroom. Towards the end of the period I asked a child who he was. He was at par with all the children in the class and doing well...He was more outgoing as he was not being chastized for being different anymore. He was the child who had been predicted in third grade he would fail. Once a child fails and is categorized like that the cycle continues. He was in the third grade and doing well. The teacher had predicted he would never learn his shapes. The truth was she would never be able to figure out how to teach those shapes because she had quit keeping up with contemporary learning experiences and classes. She had old information that other people had found out was not as good as the new information. He learned his shapes because I took maybe a half an hour around classes, held him out of a few things and taught him a few things nicely away from other children so he would not feel uncomfortable and it would not take away from the entire class.

Some children are having a bad day, have a cold, have a family problem...it does not mean they are bad it means they have a bad problem...which if it causes you problems you need to send them to the appropriate persons to help them overcome that problem...but not be set in a room alone to loose out on more.

Because I did not accept the common misnomer some children are unteachable I have been able to teach children who had been categorized as failures at kindergarden to third grade. Most if not all children can be reached most only need 15 minutes extra of your caring and time..which can be done at recess or music time...this is so little to ask if it may make the difference of a life time..so cut your coffee break a bit short and share the life time of the love of learning with a child who may not get it at home...

It has taken me a great length of time to teach some children to read but part of it is making them value it. To recognize it is important and fun and good....it is not drudgery. It has actually helped me learn to read better as I looked through the texts to find how to teach reading.

Every child has thier button you just have to find it to push. What was so funny with Kyla is I found the Kinestics Dancing Babies and she found a strong interest in reading and learning on the computer with them. After three to four hours of reading the titles to the dancing movies, counting the number of babies, doing colors, and counting how many times the baby jumped she wanted to go read her alphabet page on the computer. I could only get her to look at the computer about 15 minutes before then. She loved this set of movies so much we would come home and sit down by the computer and ask to see him. I had been trying for months to get her interested in working with me. It was phenomenal how much I got from it. Each child responds to something else. You just have to find what it is and not give up. She wore me out on the computer I had to go to sleep after that and give her a doll with a diaper to get her off the computer. I had been at the point I was saying oh never when it happened. This is the second time with a child I have been there but just looked some more. Phenomenal change in her now towards reading.
Ms. Holly