I am a former Kindergarten teacher with a masters degree and Bachelor's degree w... ith a minor in teaching kids how to read! I have worked with students who were struggling readers and helped them meet their goals to be at the next DRA level by the end of Kindergarten or the next level they were aiming to reach. I also have taught reading in first grade where we would help students focus more on summarizing stories and dive deeper into grasping the main ideas and themes and lessons within stories and books, both fiction and nonfiction. I also have taught phonics and the understanding of letters and how words carry meaning. We would dive deep into vowels and consonants and breaking up words into syllables and word parts in order to use these skills to help navigate new words in a book when we may be stumped! Letters, the sounds the letters make and words associated with letters to help us learn the sounds was all a huge part of phonics and we played games and read books as we worked on these skills to help students incorporate these skills into their daily reading. I love reading myself and have a passion for teaching young children how powerful the meaning of words are and how books can teach us so much in our world. Teaching a child to read is such a gift! read more