Rg 511 Reflective Reading Education

For my new concentration in Reading Education, I bring experience as an English/language arts teacher at the high school level as well as undergraduate and graduate coursework in literacy education. Currently, I work as a writing co-teacher for high school in Newark, New Jersey. In this role, I co-plan and modify instruction to accommodate the diverse learning needs of students classified as receiving special education services. In this role, I work with many students who are low ability readers. Daily, I work through their challenges in accessing the curriculum due to the variety of their literacy abilities. In the next year, I anticipate transition from writing and special education to a lead general education position in English. This will
give me more autonomy in developing instructional activities and curriculum. Thus, I would like to expand my knowledge in Reading Education to discover new approaches to meeting my student’s needs. My main reason for becoming an English educator is my passion for reading and literature, therefore, it pains me to see students who struggle when reading and get frustrated to the point of not wanting to read at all. In my undergraduate, I took two courses related specifically to literacy: “MGED 3150: Strategies for Teaching of Reading, Writing, and Speaking in the Middle Grades” and “MGED 4250: Assessment and Diagnosis of Reading Disabilities in the Middle Grades.” These courses expanded my knowledge of how to execute literacy instruction across disciplines and how to intervene when students struggle to read. The graduate coursework I have taken has complimented these courses, giving me further insight of how to make reading instruction integrated across content areas (READ 7330) as well as the theoretical foundations of literacy and literacy education (READ 7131).
3. Professional and Personal Goals Related to New Concentration Area
The Masters of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies will further equip me with content knowledge in English and Reading Education. This new concentration area will assist me in becoming further well-rounded in my discipline and professional life. My long term goal is to peruse Doctoral study in English or literacy education and serve as a scholar in this field. By taking extra coursework in Reading Education, I will deepen my knowledge of the different facets of literacy, such as phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. Below is a sample of the anticipated courses I would plan to take in this concentration area:
RDG 516 – Reading: The Five Pillars (summer 2017)
RDG 511 – Corrective Reading Instruction (fall 2017)
READ 7131 – Approaches to Literacy Instruction (transfer credit)
READ 7330 – Literacy in the Content Areas (transfer credit)
Likewise, I feel these courses will directly impact my current work as an English educator in an inner-city school.
Many of the students I serve have diagnosed disabilities in reading comprehension and oral expression. Therefore, I anticipate that the course “RDG 511 – Corrective Reading Instruction,” will give me new approaches to meeting this students learning needs. The course “RDG 516 – Reading: The Five Pillars” will also potentially elaborate on the knowledge I gained in READ 7131, where I encountered theories of literacy and literacy instruction. By exploring the “five pillars” of literacy in more depth, I anticipate that I will better understand how these elements collaborate to create a literate individual. I entered the Graduate Certificate program in English in order to deepen my content knowledge in literature, however, as an educator I could certainly benefit from new approaches to sharing that knowledge with my students. Through a concentration in Reading Education, I anticipate that I will be able to incorporate new strategies and approaches to sharing my knowledge with my students.
4. Learning Objectives
Some learning objectives I hope to meet with this new coursework
includes:
• Understanding and apply knowledge of the five facets of literacy: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension.
• Identify reading problems in secondary students (middle and high school).
• Demonstrate an understanding of strategies to diagnosis and teach students with reading problems.
• Connect prior knowledge of reading education with my concentration courses in English literature to help secondary students access complex literary texts.