First Reading Experince

Thursday was my first day teaching in the 3rd/4th grade class. I was fairly nervous, and did not know what was ahead of me. The teacher went over the lessons and plans during lunch, and that was that. I taught the last half of the day, and most of it was reading. This was the part that I was most nervous about. The reading program at my school is completely scripted and everything is laid out word for word. When the teacher was explaining what I needed to do for reading, it was more of her showing me what to read out of a script. It was like I was reading a part from a play. I think I was more nervous about teaching the scripted reading program than I was about teaching the other subject. I was also going to teach, more supervise, a writing assignment where the students paraphrased a paragraph and drew a picture about it.

When it came time to teach reading, my nerves skyrocketed. I was so nervous about keeping up with the script, that I forgot that I was teaching, luckily it was only with a group of 10 students. It was very weird teaching out of a scripted manual. I did not like it at all. I felt fake, and it was not fun for the kids. We did get through it, and it wasn't too bad, but I felt like I didn't really do anything. The kids were cooperative, and were a big help- which was a relief. After reading came time for paraphrasing with the whole class. This part was a lot of fun!!!! I loved it! They were great and did excellent with the activity. They did great with the paraphrasing, and really got into the activity. I found that I really liked teaching the third/fourth grade.

It is so interesting to see how different it is to teach first grade compared to the third/fourth grade. The language is different, the dialogue, and the whole atmosphere. I always thought that I really wanted to teach the first grade, and I still do, but I definitely would not mind teaching the other grades. It will be interesting to see what grade I get hired to teach....