Reading

As a student to become an elementary educator I have really come to realize how important reading is. When making lesson plans for my class I have always incorporated a book with it. I feel that the children can never learn too many words. As they get older knowing a vast vocabulary will help them throughout their lives.

In the center where I work we have some children in first grade. They love to read! I am always finding challenging books for them to begin reading. The schools are now giving an incentive to read for example the first graders were telling me how their school participates in reading counts. (A program where the children read books that are worth different points and take tests on these books) The school where they attend are taking some of the kids with the highest points for a special lunch at Max and Erma's where they will be allowed to get dessert with their lunch. I feel that this is a great incentive to keep these children reading and moving forward.

Reading is used in every subject for example in Music the different notes have meaning and in order to know and understand these meanings you must first be able to read the words. Reading is also used in Math for word problems and in Science for the different plants and animals. In social studies we talk about houses and the different types these all have separate names and meanings. Without reading and understanding the children will have a harder time in these other subjects and may end up falling behind in school.

Reading does not begin in elementary school. Instead it begins in the infant stage when parents and caregivers read to the children and point to the pictures and give them names.

Class Size

In today's classrooms the school districts are putting more and more kids into each classroom. With more students in these classrooms it becomes harder for the teachers to give each student that one on one help that the student may need. With this lack of help the students will likely fall behind and become frustrated with school. These students will then be more likely to drop out of school and in turn cause problems in their society.

A huge reason this is beginning to happen is because of budget cuts throughout the country. Some districts will take the cuts in teachers rather than in their prized sporting teams. 

While I do like sports I do not think that they are more important than the teachers who are educating the future of this country. The districts should have many different people from different view points (teachers, parents and the coaches) sit down and discuss how they can rearrange the budget in order to keep the teachers and maybe get more to help alleviate the large number of students going into each classroom.