After going through this whole semester, I've learned a lot about myself, my students,

and more importantly me as an upcoming teacher. There are a lot of strengths that I've learned

throughout this time or process about myself and some things that I need to work on too. I've

also learned different strategies to help many different types of readers, from our highest

readers to our average readers, and the lowest readers. I had the chance to work on

assessment and different types of planning, along with seeing how teaching has just made such

an impact on the students and me. This whole process has taught me so much and makes me

look forward to having my own classroom one day.

Starting off I want to talk about the strength that I've seen throughout this entire

semester while being in the classroom with the students. For me, my strengths include my

enthusiasm for teaching. You see this in every single lesson and every time I talk to the

students by wanting to engage them. That can look like having them engaged by using all

different types of learning styles that can help them connect. I also think another strength for me

is the relationships I built with my students throughout this time. I really grew a bond with every

single one of the students in their classroom and got to learn about them, their families and just

how they learn overall, which is super important whenever planning lessons. Another strength

for me would be just the overall ability and willingness to do whatever I have to for my students.

I am willing to break down a simple step for a student if they don't understand it by working on it

independently with them to make sure they understand it. I am also willing to teach them

another way if they don't understand one specific way. For me, this could make or break a

student’s education because if they don't like school and are getting frustrated, they are not

going to want to come and try. If no one's taking the time to help them this could change their

love for school. Another big strength of mine is making sure the students want to come to class

every day to see me to find out what activity we are going to be doing and to find out all the

different ways that I can teach them and help them and connect them to the material. I believe

that I have so many strengths in my teaching ability, and I've heard this is a strength of mine
from my cooperating teacher. Some things I have learned from her have helped me grow are

about classroom management. I really think it is important because I see so many teachers

struggle with classroom management, but it is really something I wanted to focus on and make

sure that I knew what I was going to be doing. She has taught me so many different tricks and

tools to help grab your students’ attention and keep them on their toes along with getting them

ready for the hallway. In the end, it's all the little things that add up to having that safe classroom

environment that fosters learning. These have all added up to make my classroom management

abilities a strength of mine.

While there are so many strengths that I have while teaching there are still some areas

of weaknesses that I need to work on to improve my teaching to be better. The first weakness of

mine is something that I haven't been able to focus on is splitting up the difference between

schoolwork and personal life. This is something that a lot of teachers tell you to really work on,

so you don't get burned out super-fast. I feel like I definitely need to work on this because when

I leave school and I come back home, I continue to just do schoolwork/teaching work. I need to

find the fine line and balance between schoolwork/teaching work and personal life. Another

weakness that I need to focus on is my willingness to allow students to struggle. As bad as this

sounds, allowing productive struggle is a good thing. I often like to jump in too early and not

allow the student to have a productive struggle and allow them to figure it out on their own.

Allowing productive struggle will allow students to figure out other steps before having to ask the

teacher for help, especially at this young age learning some independence. I have definitely

gotten better at this over the course of this semester, but I still see one of our students

struggling, and I just walk right over and help them without allowing them to ask a peer to ask

somebody else before they come and ask me for help.

Through the course of this semester, I've learned so much about reading interventions

with different types of readers. Within my classroom, there are readers who are advanced

readers and learning how to push their knowledge and ask them higher questions that are as
simple as making them refer back to the text. For my middle-level readers, having them just

comprehend basic parts of the story and telling you what is going on in the story along with

breaking down the little words that they know. For example, sounding the words that they don't

know and using different strategies. This is another thing that I've learned so much about

throughout this process, reading interventions. With my lower readers helping them realize that

they can read even if they might be a little bit slower than others not to judge themselves

against them.

I feel personally I can connect to these readers the most because I was in their position,

so I know how it feels to feel like you are behind and not good enough to read. For me when I

was that age all it took was one person to believe in me being able to push myself to read and

help me. That's what I'm doing now for these students is helping them by giving them some

strategies to help while reading. One example is the use of a word window just to see one

sentence at a time, so they're not overwhelmed with the text. Even just breaking students into

groups and having them read to each other helps! Putting these students together so they don't

feel alone and knowing there are other readers just like them is a big strategy that my teacher

uses, and I really wish that they had done that when I was that age. I was always put with the

highest readers who read super-fast while I needed people who read at my pace. Now giving

these students, a chance to do that is so important and you can see the impact that it makes

them want to read which is the whole part of it.

Continuing, throughout the semester, getting the chance to grade papers, and help plan

lessons, while teaching lessons has made such an impact on not only me but also my students.

You wouldn't think learning how to grade papers would be important, but it is such an important

and useful skill to practice. I am glad my teacher let me grade our Friday spelling test, the math

test, the reading tests, and the Dibles assessment. Getting exposed to doing different types of

assessment has been so important because I've never had that opportunity before to be on the

side of grading the tests. Seeing the way, you approach grading tests and how you're going to
keep it fair for all students it's so important and I got the chance to see that and I'm very thankful

for it. I also learned how to plan for a simple math lesson, science lesson, and reading lesson

was so impactful by having a teacher there to support you the first time you're doing this and

model to you that it should look like. Being in the same classroom and getting the chance that

teach a lesson to students you know was amazing because you could accommodate them, and

you know where they struggle, and you know the areas they might struggle in, but you know

what areas they're also going to do well in that you can challenge them in those areas. For me,

this was so different from substituting because I got the chance to really know a group of

students, learn their strengths and weaknesses and teach to their strengths and their

weaknesses. This is something I won't forget because of the look on their face whenever they

understood what you were teaching them and even if they didn't understand it but they're asking

you for help made you think okay they're understanding it but we need to also add this different

detail in so they do understand it was just something you can't forget. The impact the students

left on me while teaching is something I know I won't forget because they taught me so many

things. Like doing new methods like I do, we do, you do and what to expect and unexpected

when you're teaching. They're just such a special group of students that you taught for the first

time that you know you won't forget them because they've made such an impact in my life, and

I've got to grow such a special bond with them that they are now a part of my teaching journey.

These lessons didn't only benefit me in learning how to teach them, but it benefited the students

in learning how to accept change and learn new information differently than what their regular

teacher might be doing.

This semester overall brought me so much joy that I know I won't forget these students

because they are a part of the reason, I learned how to become a reading teacher and make

different lessons. Though at first this was overwhelming and stressful I got a hang of it and the

students were able to help me through. It truly was the reason I wanted to go to school every

day and even when I was having a bad day, I wanted to show up to make sure they were still
learning and because I needed to be there for them because they also could have been going

through something even if I was going through something. This makes me excited to teach

students and makes me want to have my own classroom soon.