University of Louisville: Kentucky Reading Project

Kelly Sraj

Hello friends!  I hope you are enjoying your summer break!  I cannot believe it, but I've been on break for almost 2 weeks!  My name is Kelly Sraj, and I just completed my 5th year of teaching.  I enjoyed teaching a 3rd/4th combined classroom for 3 years at Goshen Elementary in Oldham County, took a jaunt across the country to Seattle, Washington for a year and taught 2nd grade, and made my return to Oldham County last year where I taught 4th grade at Camden Station Elementary.  Our school loops, so I will go back down to 3rd grade this fall and bring my students up to 4th grade the following year.  I feel so blessed that I was able to return to such a great district and find a home in an amazing school. I had the opportunity to grow as a teacher this year in so many ways and share my classroom with many of my peers at my school and another school within the district.

Recent Reads

I really enjoy reading and have the opportunity to do so frequently. Due to beginning my Master's to become a Reading and Writing Specialist, I read about reading the majority of the time!  I've read Conferring: The Keystone of Reader's Workshop by: Patrick Allen, Conferring with Readers by: Jennifer Serravallo & Gravity Goldberg, and I reread Reading with Meaning by: Debbie Miller.  I know I'm missing professional text, but these are just a few.  Of course, I read my textbooks as well.  

I love to read for fun, but find that I do not have enough time to do so. I am part of a Book Club with friends, but often it turns into a social time as many of us are pursuing our master's degrees, new mommies, or teachers!  We read The Hunger Games, which I read so quickly that I had to go get the next two right away.  I am currently wrapping up the final book of the series.  Prior to that series, I flew through The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series.  My favorite thing about reading is becoming friends with the characters!  I love how close one can become to the characters, especially when reading a series.  Among my other light, favorite reads are books by Elin Hilderbrand.  A goal I have this summer is to keep a book log to share with my students when I return from break.  Hopefully this will remind me that it's OK to take time for myself and enjoy the pleasures of delving into a good book!

About Me

I am originally from Ohio, where I was born and raised.  Most of my life, I lived in Dayton, OH.  When I left for college, I attended Xavier University in Cincinnati.  From there, I felt I needed to continue moving south, thus making my way to Louisville where I began my teaching career.  A few things about me... I run... A LOT.  I am an assistant coach at Assumption High School, and I absolutely love running with some of my very best friends.  I love to compete and socialize while running, though running solo is not one of my favorite activities. :)  

I have a wonderful family; I am the second of 4 children, but last August, my brother got married, and I have another sister!  I'm blessed with amazing friends as well and spend time enjoying life with many of them.  I enjoy traveling, new adventures, decorating, trying Pintrest projects and reading.  This is my first looooong summer, and I plan to enjoy it on the lake or by the pool reading when I'm not attending class for my Master's degree to be a Reading and Writing Specialist.

Literacy in the Classroom

As I mentioned earlier, I had the opportunity to grow as a teacher this year.  My school spent time and money working with me to hone my craft as a literacy teacher.  I was blessed to attend the Oldham County Learning Institute, based off the PEBC program in Denver-- Mosaic of Thought/ Ellin Keene.  Upon doing so, my literacy coach spent a month or more in my classroom observing me, working with me to develop authentic lessons, scribing my minilessons, and scribing my conferences with students.  My success, I would say, upon working with her, is realizing the power of conversation surrounding text read.  

This all began with the Common Core strand dealing with myths.  I was terrified!  I did not know much about them, didn't recall much learning about them growing up, and so here my literacy coach and I sat, studying, reading, discussing and honestly having some doubts that students would NOT be able to synthesize to determine the themes.  Unbeknownst to us, while we stood, upon completion of a minilesson at the front of the room, trying to synthesize a text and determine the theme of a myth, she so kindly looked at me and asked, "Do you honestly think that your kids will be able to figure this out?  It's not exactly what you were discussing in the minilesson, and I'm thinking it will be too hard." -- Enter a group of 3 children, "Ms. Sraj, Mrs. Dant, we figured the theme out and here's why!"

This just goes to show that students are capable of so many great things, and what I realized is that I had allowed my students to use "thinking partners" if they got stuck reading or wanted to share a discovery.  It's amazing what transformations I saw in class upon allowing the reading block to not just be silent, independent reading, but a reading class come alive!

An area I am truly hoping to learn more about is how to incorporate grammar study within the workshop approach and my daily lesson plans.  I do not want to have a 15 minute grammar study each day to meet a quota.  I am looking for an authentic way of interweaving this in our literacy work.  Any suggestions are welcome!  

I so look forward to my time at KRP this summer. :)