One of the hardest things for most of my piano students to master, is how to "read" sheet music. As y'all know, I absolutely love playing the piano. My favorite thing to read is piano sheet music, and it has been my favorite ever since I can remember. When it comes to piano, I think of myself as one stellar reader! I'm sure that many of you have heard of the term "sight reading." I used to be very horrible at it. Sight reading is where you attempt to play a song for the very first time without ever seeing the sheet music before. It can be a struggle for a lot of people. However, throughout the years, I have become better and better at sight reading. Some other things I really enjoy reading are comics, newspapers, my cousin's blog (which is super hilarious! Check it out! It Just Gets Stranger), The Book of Mormon (My favorite book ever!!!), and fiction novels.

I haven't always enjoyed reading. I remember one instance when I was in Elementary School. I was cramming to get a book report done, and I really wanted to finish reading my 500 page book in one night to do it. Now, my mother, being the smart woman she is, found me a book that was 100 pages and had lots of pictures! It worked perfect for the time constraint that I had, but I didn't enjoy the read one bit. I felt completely and 100% forced to read it. Their was no voluntary action in the matter, and it was all homework based. I don't even remember what book I read, or what I learned from it. I also remember many times in classes where we would be assigned a lot of reading, and I would spend forever on it because I have to read every thing super slow to be able to comprehend it. I remember communicating with my classmates and being frustrated and jealous when they told me the reading only took them about 20 minutes or so. Throughout my middle school years, I built up a dislike of reading whenever it had to do with classwork, homework, or a grade. I didn't like the idea of not being able to read what I wanted to read, on my own, and at my own pace. Since then, I've had to come to terms with accepting that it takes me longer than most students to make it through assigned readings.

I can't say that there was anyone that ever really discouraged me from reading. I've always seen my mom with a new book each month growing up. I think she's actually the one that really helped me begin to have the desire to read. I also had a friend that would give me a new book each year for Christmas, and I was always excited to read it! I have always loved reading my scriptures! They are one thing that I've never disliked reading! I read from them every single day and never get sick of it.

As I think more and more about my future students, I want to be able to help them open up a new world through reading. One thing that I really liked from a previous teacher was that she had a wide variety of reading texts that addressed the same topic area. As students, we were able to choose which reading we wanted to do, and reflect on it. It was perfect for me! I didn't feel like I was being completely forced to read something. I had some say in the matter. Also, I was able to choose something that wasn't too long or strenuous for me. There was also such a wide variety, that practically all of the students' interest was sparked! We all were excited about the reading!

It takes time to become a reader (just as it took time for me to develop good sight reading skills). As we allow our students multiple times to "read" texts within our content areas, their confidence will increase as they understand more and more. I also think it's important to help students realize that reading isn't just about reading words from books or articles. For example, in mathematics, students read 3D objects, graphs, charts, etc. There are so many dimensions to reading that we can open up to our students. We can learn how to read nature, other people, different situations, etc. Reading is comprehending, analyzing, comparing, contrasting, etc. It's not just opening up a book and reading page after page after page after page. It's about discovery! I hope that when I am a teacher, I can help my students experience the excitement that "reading" can bring.

My whole life I have loved music - particularly playing the piano! I love the flowing feeling of running my fingers up and down the long stretch of piano keys. The many songs I play have been a huge way of how I express my feelings and personality. There are so many different ways we can express our feelings, personality, and ideas to others. If you ever meet my family, one of the first things you may learn about us is that we completely consider ourselves the worst writers in the world. We love to laugh and joke about it all the time. While I was on my mission in North Carolina, I actually wrote a poem. When my mom read it, she declared, "I finally have a child that is a writer!!!" I will admit that I do enjoy writing poems. I don't know much about poem structure, or anything like that, I just "follow my heart" per se. I also love, love, LOVE to take pictures - especially of the things that I cherish (nature, family, music, friends, etc.)

I always wish that I could take a photography class, but alas, I don't have the funds to purchase a high-tech camera. To me, taking pictures and playing the piano are, for sure, a 'form' of writing. Like they say, "A picture is worth a thousand words." It's how I express myself. It is how I share my "voice" with others. I have also loved writing in a journal. It's so fun to take time to look back at the things I thought were important in my youth, and compare them to what is important to me now. So, I can say that throughout my life, I have loved "writing" more than I actually realized. I even enjoyed writing assignments in school - well, that was until I had to start writing research papers. BLECH!!! This has ultimately been my reaction to research papers! Until . . . I took English 2010 my first semester in College. Now that was a blast! I came to love writing research papers! (It could be due to the fact that our professor allowed us to choose our own topic). It was wonderful to study and learn about something that I truly cared about. I have also really enjoyed this writing assignment of blogging. It's been so fun to be able to put my own voice into this writing, and include various forms of literature that help me express my ideas. I realize that when I am a teacher, my students will have multiple 'writing assignments' to accomplish. As I do this, I want to make sure that each student has a chance to express their ideas as well as their personality. I loved the idea of having students choose for themselves (or even from a list of topics) of what they want to 'write' about. Since I love music so much, I think it would be fun to allow students to even write songs with lyrics to express their understandings of certain content that has been discussed in class. For example:

There are so many different forms of writing that teachers can open up to their students (facebook, blogging, music, photography, poems, oral language, skits, etc.). I guess what I'm saying is that I don't want to be known as the teacher that makes my students write page after page after page. I believe that the more fun the learning process is for the students, the more likely they will be to understand, retain, and apply the content. This will also help with diversity in the classroom. Students don't all learn the same way, and they don't all express themselves the same way. This could help create a classroom environment where students feel comfortable sharing their ideas, understandings, and personalities.