It Just Keeps Getting Better

Every year I cannot imagine how the teachers, parents and students can make our Literary Pumpkin Festival bigger and better, but they continue to do so. Special thanks go to the PTA for organizing it all and making it happen! Please take a moment and enjoy a look at our literary pumpkins, trick or treating and carnival pictures and just know that you have made memories that will last a lifetime and once again touched the lives of our precious students. Thank you everyone!

My Life As a Reader!

I love to read, I always have. I am a slow reader though. I can remember this really bothering me growing up because everyone always finished before I did. It's not that I had trouble decoding or with my fluency, and I comprehended and synthesized really well. A number of years ago I finally became a skilled enough reading teacher that I could figure out what had caused me to be so slow. I spend a lot of time while I am reading visualizing the story - probably too much time, but its what helps me glean the most from the story. I think every single one of my elementary report cards said "Susan daydreams too much in class...". Well duh, it wasn't that I was thinking about something other than what the teacher was teaching - its that I was busy making mental images of what I was trying to learn!

Let's face it, most of what I read is professional literature, I just don't seem to be able to find the time for much else. Reading professionally as an educator is essential for professional growth and is a huge part of my job - its work. My real love though, is fiction, and more specifically stories full of intrigue or mystery. Reading fiction is like an escape for me, like taking a mini vacation. Unfortunately I can only allow myself this luxury every once and a while because the reading consumes me. I get lost in the story imagining what the characters and setting look like. If I happen across a series I get in to you can just forget about me until I have them all read. I forget time and start neglecting things around me like dishes, laundry, eating and even sleep! I'm beginning book 7 in a series of 9 books I am completely engrossed in right now - and I just started reading 12 days ago! I will hate to see the end of the series come and wait very impatiently for the author to write another. My family will jump for joy because I will finally return from my extended vacation...

What's your life as a reader like?