Shameless Plug

A couple of years ago, I had an unexpected career shift. Without getting into nitty gritty details, I stumbled upon The Reading Room and became one of their dyslexia tutors. I have the coolest job in the world! For one, I'm doing the greatest part of my original career path--watching students learn and grow into confident, capable readers and learners. I get to watch the wheels turn in their little heads and the light bulb finally go off. Second, it challenges me because I've always enjoyed and excelled at reading. I went into kindergarten reading and throughout elementary and middle school, I had a book with me basically at all times. I have difficulty relating to people who struggled with reading since I never experienced that.

However, far too many people do struggle with reading. And spelling. That's where we come in! My office is jumping into the 21st century (OK, really we've had plenty of technology all along in the office. Now we're going beyond our walls). They have a blog, a Facebook page, and my boss was recently on the local news to discuss some early warning signs and their homework technology workshop.

If you or someone you know has difficulty reading and spelling, check out our website to learn more and give Stacey a call.

Little Things

I'm a pathetic excuse for a blogger. To my credit, it's been a crazy couple of weeks around here. Husband's grandfather had surgery a couple of weeks ago, so keeping up with all of that plus work had us running all over town. Pawpaw's surgery went great. Watching Mawmaw take care of him when he first got to his room was so sweetly adorable. One of those "we'll be like that when we get older, right?" moments. Yesterday though Pawpaw mowed his yard, when he has yet to be cleared to drive ANYTHING, much less have that much physical exertion. Mother-in-Law is beyond livid with him. It's tough raising parents.

Anyway, I had a moment at work yesterday that I just had to share. One of my students is extremely...stubborn. She has guessed at words for so long, she doesn't really have the skills to USE the rules we give her to help decode words. She has also said on more than one occasion to both her other tutor and me that she doesn't care if she learns to read, she doesn't want to be here, blah, blah, blah. Last week she threw herself a nice little fit for me. She was trying to read a story and getting completely frustrated at not being able to figure out the words. That shut her down for most of the rest of the lesson. Not fun. Yesterday we had to start off again with reading stories. She gets about half way through the first one (and did a great job of figuring out words--only one really threw her because, well, how often do YOU use the word "utmost" in everyday conversations?) and asks if her grandmother could come in and hear her read. I say absolutely, but was a little nervous since she hadn't read the whole thing through yet and she has a history of getting frustrated easily. She stumbled over a few words, but only needed a couple of prompts ("What will that c say?" or "What's that vowel sound again?"). I catch her grandmother wipe her eye and then again and realize she's started crying. When my student is done, her grandmother hugs her and says "Thank you for sharing that with me." So beautiful. When grandmother leaves my student says "She was crying" and kind of giggles. I told her that was because of what an amazing job she did, sounding out words, dividing when she needed to, and not getting upset when she didn't know a word automatically. Grandmother may need to come in more often! One of those little things that remind me why I love what I'm doing and reinforces what my ultimate goal is.

A-Ha

Hey look! It's an update! I'm just glad my last post gave everyone reason to not come around often.

Anyway, have you ever had one of those "A-Ha" moments? The moments where everything seems to click and fall into place? I had one of those recently and it's made me incredibly excited but incredibly impatient. I have found my purpose professionally. It's something I have really been struggling with as the deadline to start my Masters degree rapidly approaches.

Background: In Kentucky, you have to have a Masters degree to renew your teaching certificate. You get 5 years to start after completing K-TIP (Kentucky Teachers Internship Program). For me, my expiration date is 2012. So not horribly pressing, but quickly approaching. While working on a Masters, you can take specialized courses and earn an "endorsement" or specialization. That's what I've been toying with for quite awhile, although honestly, I had been toying with the idea of not getting a Masters period and do something else besides teaching. Until I had my a-ha moment.

I have spent this past school year tutoring students with dyslexia. A teacher at my old school brought this issue up last year as she was going through a certification process to diagnose and tutor dyslexia. I tried to start tutoring myself that summer, but the site she was using wasn't hiring. This school year, business started booming and they needed more tutors so after a super quick process, I began tutoring 2-3 sessions once a week. This semester, after the lay-off, they gave me an additional 4 sessions 2 days a week. I have loved every minute of it. Sometimes it's frustrating, trying to get some of my students to focus. I remind myself that they have been in school all day, sometimes struggling to survive that, then have to come to me for an hour only to go home and finish homework. So we do some goal setting and when time allows, we play games that may or may not have anything to do with anything. This has given me focus in what I want to do: obtain my Masters with an endorsement in Reading and Writing. This would give me qualifications not only as a regular classroom teacher, but as a Reading or Writing Specialist. I would also like to become certified to diagnose dyslexia as most Reading Specialists don't have this training.

How did I stumble across this plan? A job posting, of course! I had been thinking about the Reading/Writing Masters for awhile, but this posting at a school I ADORE was specifically for people with training in dyslexia, using a particular method (guess what method we use in tutoring...the SAME). I know this job is perfect for my experiences. Pray for me that THEY realize it's perfect for my experiences. But even if I don't get this position, I'm still hitting the job market (what sliver there is) hard this time around, emphasizing what I've been working on so I can start putting my plan into motion (it's way easier to have a job then the Masters rather than the other way around--when school tout wanting the most qualified teachers, you'd think a Masters would be helpful, but you'd be wrong).

This post is a lot of rambling and I apologize. I just thought I'd share my excitement, prayer request, and experiences. When have you experienced a-ha moments? Did you feel like you were hit over the head with bricks? Did it build gradually until you just realized it?