Learning about a Person's Reading History

Shared by one of our wonderful presenters
Kim Haskins

#reflective

Last week, I attended a wonderful 2.5 day IB (International Baccalaureate) Workshop on Inquiry Reading and Writing.  On our last day, we were encouraged to write an action plan to say how we would take our new learning and put it in place.  I wrote that I would share some of my new learning with the world!

So, I want to begin by walking through one of the first activities we did as a group-mapping our reading and writing lives...

Our presenters broke us up into two groups-one to write about our journey of reading and the other our journey of writing.

They got us started by playing beautiful, peaceful background music from the piano guys...I made a youtube playlist of their music...so relaxing and wonderful to write to as I journeyed through these memories...
Here's my playlist:

Play it as you write about your reading and writing journey...if you need questions to jog your memory, check out this list of questions:  Reading History

Here's collage pic of how some of our pieces turned out...

and here's how mine turned out...

A common theme among the group who shared around me was the influence of their mothers on their literacy development.  I thought it important to note how parents influence literacy development...and I read facts from this site:  50 Top Literacy Statistics

Here's Stat 6 which talks about a mom's influence in terms of vocabulary development.

Stat # 6  Researchers found that when mothers frequently spoke to their infants, their children learned almost 300 more words by age 2 than did their peers whose mothers rarely spoke to them. Huttenlocher et al., 1991. Early vocabulary growth: Relation to language input and gender. Developmental Psychology, 27, 236-248.

I remember how my mom would read to me from my "I Can Read" books.  She influenced my literacy development and I moved from the bottom to the top reading groups as I moved through the primary grades.  I developed and evolved even more as a reader once I reached fourth grade and to this day can still remember how my fourth grade teacher read aloud.  Love you still Mrs. Hunter.

So I end  this blog post-curious to know your reading and writing history-share it with the world.

What does it look like?  Who's influenced you?  How will you influence others in the world?

Share your story...

The One Little Word Found Me

Join in the celebration this week!

Today, I wanted to celebrate by writing about how my One Little Word found me.  I started off the new year wondering about my word...

others found theirs
shared them
and yet, I wondered more...

I

thought-



pondered-




explored-



still no ideas...


I gave it up.  to.  God.

I prayed that I would find my word and just got going with things I needed to accomplish.  One of the first things on my professional 2018 to do list was achieving Google Level 1 Certification.  I did it!  You can read more about that here.


Then I realized-(trumpet blast)!

I felt like I had laser focus on achieving this goal.  And then it hit me, "focus" played a role in achieving the goal.  And that's how "Focus" found me.

Hello Focus!  My One Little Word for 2018.  I've had OLWs in the past (like, Listen, Balance and Believe).  These were all helpful.  I hope that Focus will serve me well for 2018.


Here's more about my One Little Word that's firmly planted in my brain:

Focus

• visual thesaurus

from https://www.visualthesaurus.com
where you can plug in a word and see how it connects

• defined

via google omnibox

• word clouded

created using WordArt.com

I pray that this word can help guide me like a compass and be my true north for 2018.  I am grateful for it finding me.  I will use it to:

• grow my relationships, nurturing them just like the flowers I see in my garden, adding what I believe to be the right ingredients to flourish

• inspire me professionally as a leader, teacher, and learner

• help my path of positivity and help me avoid distractions

I know I have room to grow in the process of staying focused and I believe in my heart I can make this happen.

What have you chosen for your OLW this year?

Celebrating Colleagues

Thank you to Ruth Ayres for hosting the weekly celebrate link up!

In the midst of the school year ending, there's always so much to do.  I have had three big projects to put together over the last few weeks and now they are almost nearing completion...what I love about this opportunity is that it allows me to collaborate with colleagues who are part of my professional growth puzzle.  I ran across this description as I received the book A Mindset for Learning by Kristine Mraz and Christine Hertz on Thursday.  I immediately started reading it and found connections and smiles within just the first few pages.

In the dedication, Kristine Mraz wrote this quote:  "There are people you meet who fit with you like a puzzle piece and you realize together you are more than you were alone."

I immediately identified with this quote and pictured my close colleagues who inspire me and nudge me to grow professionally nearly every day.  So this week, I'm celebrating being connected with these co-workers and thank them for helping me to better my actions within the teaching profession.