My Thoughts

I CANNOT READ. Of course you can read. You are reading right now…. Tell me what the story is about. I would love to listen…. Yes. That does say bear…. I can help you with other words you may not know. I know more words than you because I have been reading for a long time, but even though I read a lot, I don’t always know all the words…. Picture books are great. I wish I could draw like that…. I love graphic novels too…. That looks like a great choice. May I read with you? ...

With “more than 75% of school principals and district leaders having trouble finding enough substitutes to cover teacher absences this year,” I wasn’t surprised when ,on the first day back after Winter Break, I received an email stating that instead of meeting with my usual groups, I would be a second grade substitute teacher for the next five days. By Friday, I was grateful. It had been over five years since I had been a classroom teacher, and this is what I learned. ...

I woke up this morning to find a text from Hannah. A TikTok of a current trend. A girl her age lip-synching to, “I know something you don’t. I know something you will never know.” The caption read, “My Jewish ass when the other kids in class would talk about Santa.” Behind this girl was an elaborate Hanukkah display with lights, bears, and menorahs. Right away, I knew the connection. I texted back, “I love this.” ...

Hannah decided on Colleen Hoover’s, It Ends with Us, for our two-person book club, and when she returned from college, home for Winter Break, a copy of the book was on her bedroom dresser, patiently awaiting her arrival. A few nights later, Hannah was ready to read. I quickly put on my go-to pajama bottoms, favorite t-shirt, and five-dollar Amazon Readers. I plopped down on her bed — right beside her. ...

Every afternoon, I welcome two groups of second graders, at two different times. They come with high expectations; when they leave, thirty minutes later, they assume that they will understand math more than they did the day before, and that is on me. Lesson plans follow our math department’s Scope and Sequence, which is “an important step in the design of effective teaching and learning programs”. Our county’s Scope and Sequence includes a timeline for me to follow so I know when to teach specific math standards. So far, we have dived deeply into eleven standards. Fifteen more to go. ...

Since reading the picture book Outside, Inside by LeUyen Pham, I have wanted to sing its praises to the world. Now I am thinking that a Picture Book Club for grownups might just be the answer. On Wednesday, while reading it aloud to my students for the very first time, my chest tightened and an unrequested silence filled the air. LeUyen Pham’s book spoke a story that all of us understood. It not only connected me to my students; it connected me to the world. ...

Each week, I walk to the second-grade classrooms, with a pep in my step, eager to sit in my designated chair ready to welcome any young author wanting to talk with me about their writing. On my first visits, I came with folded sheets of construction paper, each prewritten with a student’s name. Inside each folder was a twice-folded piece of notebook paper with pencil- traced folds that created four boxes. I had numbered each box: one, two, three, and four. Box 1 included WHO, and WHERE. Box 4, a heart. There was also a folder for me. ...

It was August 18 of 2021. I felt the hope and excitement of so many parents, children and educators. Our schools were opening their doors, without the option of remote learning, for the first time in over a year. As much as I hoped for the best, it took just a few weeks to see that Covid19 had wreaked academic havoc on our youngest students. I had a new position, working with second graders, in an effort to help them recover from lost learning due to the pandemic, and to help close this achievement gap (that just grew wider), I knew that small group research-based reading instruction just wasn’t enough. If they were going to become readers, they needed to want to read, and I knew that if I wanted them to love books, I needed to become the role model they so desperately needed. I made a decision to stop watching television and I became a voracious reader who can tell her students that she absolutely loves to read and mean it. ...

Alison Levine teaches Creative Writing at a public elementary school in Coconut Creek, Florida. She has been a gifted resource teacher, an elementary school classroom teacher and a middle school language arts teacher. She is passionate about reading current research on education and implementing new strategies in her classroom. Alison loves taking long walks and spending time with family and friends. She especially loves being a mom to her two children, Charlie and Hannah. ...