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But I’m Not a Reading Teacher: My Story
By Miguel Gómez
Document: Article
Introductory Paragraph: I recognize that reading teachers have undergone countless hours of professional development and teacher preparation to acquire the skills that help students learn to read. I also recognize that I do not have those skills nor have I participated in that type of training because I am not a reading teacher. So, at 7:00 AM, on a crisp winter morning, at one of our school’s staff meetings, when my principal informed me that every teacher would be responsible for teaching reading for the first 45 minutes of the day, my response was swift and poignant:
But I am not a reading teacher! After 13 years as a student in public schools and nine years of higher education, I have learned how to embrace the power of reading to inform my life. I have read for pleasure, I have read for information, I have read for curiosity, and, yes, I have read because others have asked me to, or more pointedly, required that I do so. More recently, in my role as a middle school teacher and now as a university professor in teacher preparation, I have utilized my reading skills to open up countless possibilities and to inform my pedagogical practices within the classroom. In the simplest terms, my ability to read has transformed the way I teach and the teacher I have become. However, like many other educational professionals, when pressed to do something we are not familiar with, I was hesitant and scared. I questioned everything I knew about teaching. What would I teach? How do I know if my students are learning? What activities do we do? What should we read? What other questions about reading should I be asking that I do not even realize I should be asking? These questions are essential to great teaching, and I was not even remotely prepared to answer them because I am not a reading teacher.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.33600/IRCJ.49.2.2021.21
Page Numbers: 21-31
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