a newfound love

I love books! I love reading them, I love learning from them, I love smelling them, I love placing them on my shelf when I'm finished, I love collecting them, and I love telling others about them.

I dream of one day having an old-fashioned library with shelves from floor to ceiling, sliding ladders and a reading nook. Oh the hours I will spend there...

But since I don't have one yet, I spent the past week in my first graduate class on Diagnosing Learning Different Children.  Being a reading teacher at a school for dyslexic children, I was excited to learn how my students were diagnosed and what exactly defined their disability.  Not only are my students dyslexic, but they also have severe expressive and receptive language issues (which means they have difficulty understanding what is being spoken to them and expressing their own thoughts). 

My students hate loathe reading... with a passion.  I can't say I blame them. It is so hard for them and requires so much energy just to decode the words that there is no room in their brain for comprehension. What fun is reading a book you don't understand?  On top of that, most of them don't fully get the sarcasm or humor, it just goes over their head.  One of them actually said to me, "We don't understand a lot of things. We spend most of our lives confused."  Can you imagine?  They know they're different.

In my reading homework, I was appalled to learn these statistics:
- 44% of our nation's fourth-grade children are reading below grade level (and 32% of those have college-educated parents!)
- 20% of elementary children have a learning disability, but only 5-6% are receiving "special" instruction

which has lead to these illiteracy rates:
-75% of unemployed
-85% of juveniles who appear in court
-60% of prison inmates

So (hypothetically speaking) our tax money is going to build prisons to house illiterate inmates who were not taught enough reading skills to get a job so they had to resort to a life of crime to make ends meet....

But what I took away from class this week was a passion yearning to instill in my students a love for reading and a sense of self-worth. This past year I was so focused on teaching the basic, requirements for my students. And because mine have severe language issues, most of what I teach is language. We don't usually have a lot of time for reading enrichment... even though it's a "reading enrichment" class.

So here's my game plan:
1. Quit teaching piano to have more time after school for lesson planning and reading.
2. Plan a weekend retreat with no distractions to learn more and plan.
3. Read these books BEFORE school starts.

4. Meet with reading enrichment mentor monthly to share creative ideas and brainstorm.
5. Read a book a month (just like in high school) and share on blog to enhance my own reading skills and set an example for my students. Here's what I've got so far, although I'd like to include books my students are reading so we can talk about them together.

"An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge." 

Proverbs 18:15

I believe instilling in my students a love for reading and a thirst for knowledge will be one of the greatest things I can give them... something that can never be taken away.  And I will fervently pray the Lord will one day use their knowledge to bring them closer to Him.

Teach me more Lord so I can teach Your children.

humbled by His faithfulness and love,
sarah jane