University of Louisville: Kentucky Reading Project

Hello All- Sorry for the late post but I was having some technology trouble. 

My name is Mary Beth McCubbins and am 29 years old. I have taught at Roby Elementary in Bullitt County for 3 1/2 years, all of which have been in 5th grade. For the past several years we have been departmentalized and I have been solely responsible for the math core. However, this upcoming year will be my first year being self contained and I am very excited about learning literacy techniques that I can implement next year.

As for pleasure reading I am addicted to the author Jennifer Weiner. I have most recently completed "Fly Away Home" and just purchased her newest novel "Then Came You". I must admit that I am still reading the old fashion way and like to turn the pages. When it comes to pleasure reading I like the typical love story with light humor. Life is so serious that I like to read to escape. I wish that I could read more often but because when I do read my life gets put on hold until I finish the book, I limit myself to mostly reading during winter and summer breaks.

I consider myself to be happy go lucky and I try to make everything fun. I grew up in Bullitt County and considered eduction as a profession at a very young age. Both my mother and sister were both teachers and it seemed inevitable. Consequently I chose to try something different and graduated from University of Louisville with a Marketing degree. I worked several years in advertising but felt like something was missing. I moved to the Grand Cayman Islands to "find myself" and "found" that my place was in the classroom. I graduated with my Masters from UofL and began teaching just two weeks after graduation. The classroom was a perfect fit. As for a perfect fit, I recently got engaged and hopefully will get wedding plans done over the summer. Sounds like fun but I will see!

This past year was my first time teaching small reading groups during a literacy block. Our reading core was taught by another teacher and I was responsible for my individual groups. I was pleased with the organization and management of the rotations. But struggled with the texts that came with the program (Lead 21). I wanted to teach authentic literature, Pinballs, Bud not Buddy, Holes, etc. the books that interest the students and encourages them to love to read. I understand that they need more non-fictional reading for test prep but I have to find a way to incorporate both next year.  One thing that I started this year was readers' journals but ran into a snag when it came time for showing student accountability. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I look forward to this learning experience and cant wait to take new ideas back to my classroom!