In the beginning

In the beginning ...
Jennie sat on my lap one evening, just like every other evening since her birth, as I read aloud a bedtime story. It was probably Corduroy; she'd listened to me read it so many times, that she could catch me leaving out words, which I did sometimes in an attempt to shorten the story. By four years old she had come to the conclusion that the words in books were supposed to remain constant every time they were read. Crossing that literacy threshold, brought her to the point, on this momentous evening, of asking "where does it say 'bear'?"

I pointed out the word "bear" as she leaned closer to get a better look at it. That night I could hardly sleep. I was so excited. My pre-school age daughter understood what READING was.

In the beginning ...
I worked in the kitchen at my daughter's elementary school for a few months. One day when I went upstairs to the school office to retrieve the lunch count, I discovered that a sick child in the health office and the secretary attending to him were unsuccessfully trying to communicate: one only spoke Spanish and the other only spoke English. I offered to help since I knew both languages. Later the secretary suggested I talk to the principal about some teaching assistant job openings in a couple bilingual classrooms. Soon I found my self working part-time in kindergarten in addition to serving lunch in the cafeteria.

One thing led to another and within two years I'd renewed my old teaching certificate and was in a professional position in the field of education, as a part-time literacy teacher in kindergarten. Kindergartners are exhausting but the job was exciting. I especially loved sitting in a circle on the floor with a few 5 year olds. My favorite thing to say to the students in the fall each year was, "Today I'm going to teach you to read." Every year, in response to that announcement, they would sit up straight and lean forward to see how READING works.

Now...
As I am entering the twilight of my professional teaching career, I seem to have circled back around to the beginning. Not as a kindergarten classroom teacher. A room full of 25 kindergartners would be too exhausting. But I am excited to be gearing up to teach 4-6 five year olds at a time, as a Literacy Specialist. This past weekend I dusted off my speech so as to be ready to announce to a new batch of kindergartners: "Today I'm going to teach you to read."

We'll start on Wednesday. Of course, I'll need more preparation than just an eight word speech. I haven't worked with kindergartners for a few years, but it must be like riding a bike, right? You never forget: pull out the little magnetic letters, gather together some name cards and tracing crayons, multiple copies of early emergent books and some very short chairs.

Then here I go... back to the beginning of teaching a child to READ!