Final Blog Post for the Semester

This semester has been a worldwind for me, but one of the classes i really enjoyed was language arts. This blog is not something i would start on my own, but i find myself liking it, posting the thoughts i did not want to speak in class and others i thought of after class ended. It was another thing to keep track of, and i am not sure how often i'll come back on in the future, but i know that i'll try. I like how freeing blog writing is since it's just you, your thoughts, and the computer. I would like to encourage my peers to start a blog simply for the benefits of venting out frustration or any other feelings.
For growth of language arts, i feel that putting myself in the student's shoes by participating in the writing process really helped me grow in my own writing ability. Having not done the whole process in a long time made me nervous about the book in the beginning but i realized that this is how my students will feel. Sometimes relating to the children can give a teacher the mind set they need to teach the best way. For writing, a teacher needs to write themselves in order to get students interested in it or at least attempt to like it. This can be said for reading also. Reading instruction has no right way as i learned this semester. The teacher needs to look at each class and each student as individuals that may or may not need a different approach to understand the concepts.
Reading and writing are important skills for children to learn and they need to start off on the right foot to achieve their highest potential. While a love of both would make improving the skills easier, a teacher that can get students at least like and try their best when it comes to reading and writing will be the most effective teacher. I was not sure of my ability to teach language arts before this course, but having the knowledge/background of reading and writing, strategies to teach both, and knowing how i am as a writer, i think that i can teach it in a way that all students will succeed.