Lesson 5

After watching the videos on Language and Reading, how does this information impact you as a teacher?

As an English teacher I have a firm belief in the critical importance of reading  daily both as a part of school work and for personal enjoyment.  Reading encourages vocabulary development as well as critical thinking skills. I also firmly believe that students should be read aloud to and participate in reading aloud.  Hearing the words spoken, especially while following along in their own books, encourages language development, even at upper grades.  

Knowing a little bit about how language develops can help me if I have a student who is having difficulty with reading.  Being able to identify areas of weakness can help me identify what strategies I can take to fill in gaps in prior education.  Because I intend on teaching 7th-12th graders I may not utilize much of the information presented in the video but it forms a foundation for me to utilize when there are students with gaps in their language development.  It also encourages me to support foreign language development in my classroom by collaborating with the foreign language teachers to see how we can create projects that will cross the classrooms and engage the students on multiple levels.