Heather Reiff

Barth Elementary School

Cathleen Emerick

Reading Specialist for Grades K-4

 I was able to interview my cousin Cathleen Emerick for this assignment. She is a reading

specialist at Barth Elementary School for grades K to 4. I felt it was important to ask her what

her number one piece of advice for a new teacher working with striving readers would be and her

piece of advice was to do a lot of structured reading routines, which is a lot of “I do” (Teacher

modeling), “we do” (guided practice), and “you do” (independent practice) routines. She also

made sure to mention not to rush through the “we do” (guided practice) part of the lessons.

Piggybacking off of this question, I also wanted to know what tips she would give new teachers

to help them be successful for both themselves and their students. She stated that when you are

struggling or confused with how to teach a skill, ask a veteran or mentor teacher for advice.

An interesting question I asked her was how has her techniques or teaching style changed

from her first-year teaching to now and also what has she learned through the years? I felt that

this question was both interesting and important because things change over time. She explained

that she has learned through the years that children appreciate explicit instruction and learning

routines and that they need to be told exactly what is expected of them. She even provided an

example, that students thrive on lots of modeling of phonics rules, exactly what to look for in

expository text, and how to fill out various comprehension worksheets. Also, to review, practice,

and remind them often of behavioral and learning expectations. She continues to describe that

she has also learned that if you can connect any motion or story to a skill, students remember the

information better. Her time management has also improved since her first year of teaching.

When asked if she had a favorite strategy when working with students, she said it is not a

strategy but a skill that she feels strongly about providing. She feels as though all striving readers

need to practice phonemic awareness skills every day, even if it is just for five minutes and that

students who do not have a good phonemic awareness foundation will struggle with reading. I
can definitely understand her strong preference for this still as it will help students out a lot in the

current and future learning.

In addition to my previous questions, I felt as though asking her what way does she

approaches striving readers so that they don't feel different than their friends is something that as

a future teacher I should receive advice about so I do not accidently single anyone out or make

them feel different. She approaches this by calling on striving readers to answer a question when

she knows that they have the correct answer as it gives those students every opportunity to feel

recognized when they contribute to discussions within the classroom and acknowledge their

strengths. I also asked her what can be the most frustrating task to deal with in the classroom

and her response was very insightful and relevant to current times. Her response was that with

this being the first year back with ALL students attending in-person, it will be challenging to

meet all of her students’ various reading needs and that many more students will require reading

intervention or additional small group reading instruction now.

I then asked her two questions that a similar and kind of tie together. I first asked her

what skill that she has found most useful in reaching all students in the classroom to which her

reply was that blending routines are useful when teaching children in elementary school. When

students are learning how to read, it’s helpful to have a solid routine for practicing reading words

together as a group and that over time, it will help with their fluency. The next question was in

addition to successful techniques, are there any that she has found are unsuccessful for her

students. She said that not necessarily because every student is different, so one technique that

works for one student may not work for another. She further explained that that’s why teachers

have a bag of tricks or strategies that they can resort to.

 The final two questions I asked her are ones that I think are obviously specific to each

teacher but are very insightful as well. One of the questions I asked her was how would she

define success in her students and also what does a successful reading session look like? Her

reply was that her job as a reading specialist relies on data driven instruction. She uses

diagnostics and benchmark data to determine what reading skills a student needs instruction in.

She further explains that during her daily instruction, she looks for small successes during a

student’s independent practice and that it could be observed while the student is reading word

lists, phrases, sentences, or a passage. In addition to that, she also monitors students' progress on

a weekly basis to see reading growth.

The final question I asked her was does she use different techniques for each student or is

there a certain technique that seems to work for all students. Her response was very in line with

what we are learning and what we also know. She said that depending on the student’s needs, she

will use different techniques. One technique that she likes students at all levels to practice is

word chains. She explained that it is a spelling activity that can be used at any level and it ties

into being able to read the words, too and students need to be able to hear what sound changes

from one word to the next in order to spell the new word correctly. She also provided an

example of a word chain: Spell - rat, rate, grate, grace, race, rack.

I am extremely lucky that I am easily able to ask Cathleen any questions I may have

about teaching in general or anything specific to reading. This is my second teacher interview I

have been able to do with her for school, as she was previously a special education teacher for

years prior to becoming a reading specialist I believe about 7 years ago. She has always been

gracious enough to answer any teaching questions I may have and also share some details about

her work whenever we see each other which gives me great insight to the life of a teacher.