How I got here

When I started college at 18 in South Carolina at Columbia International University, I started a journey to become a teacher and to influence children's lives for the better, and to impart knowledge. Despite the many times I wanted to quit in school, I graduated on May 2007. When I came back to CT (Sorry...not a Southern Belle!) I was planning on starting grad school to become certified and get my master's degree.

Since I took education classes at CIU and even did student teaching in third grade (which was awesome!) I sent my records to the Board of Education in CT. The BOE sent me a renewable certification, as long as I passed the Praxis II test. I signed up and took the two long, tests...which were two hours each! Exhausting to say the least. But it was worth it and rewarding as I found out a few weeks later that I had passed. The BOE sent me my official certification!!!!

By the time I got my certification, the school year had already started (October) and I started substitute teaching. After about two weeks, I was offered two jobs at Washington School in Manchester. I started working as a Title I tutor in the 6 grade. I worked with a teacher who gave me three reading groups and full responsibility of teaching students comprehension strategies in order to have comprehension while reading. We studied strategies like summarizing, inferencing, finding the main idea, sequencing and predicting. Students read interesting books such as The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle and Crispin.

I also worked as an after school teacher for the 5th and 2nd grades at Washington. While I kept up these two part time jobs, I was taking classes at Eastern CT State University, studying Teaching Reading and Children's Literature. I plan on going back to finish my master's degree in the near future.

Because there was a sixth grade school built in Manchester, the Title I Tutor position at Washington Elementary became no longer available. In Fall 2008 I decided to start substitute teaching again, as to get my name out in the "education world." Many teachers need to substitute/long term substitute before they obtain their full time dream job. This is my plan!