For as long as I remember I have always wanted to be a learner. I remember trying to learn how to tie my shoes, I was always very independent and wanted to do things on my own. While growing up, I always wanted to observe someone do something and then I would take it from there. I attempted to do things relying only on my observations as a teacher and when the outcome wasn’t quite what I expected, I would go back and ask questions to guide me to the right conclusion. Most of the time I was successful in learning this way because I would evaluate what I saw, then I would find a process that was easier for my thinking and me but had the same results. I always thought there was more than one way to do things, like riding a bike, everyone would probably tell you a different way or technique they like best. I know there is only one way to count and each step is required in a particular order when using the scientific method. However, people think differently and it is okay to organize your thoughts in different ways and still be able to learn. Sometimes when learning I experience disconnections, for example, when I am taking in a lot of new information, things may seem overwhelming and it seems like my whole mind just shuts down. Although, I notice the more familiar I am with the material the easier it is for me to learn new concepts and ideas. At times, I can’t see the forest for the trees and I tend to read too far into things instead of just taking a breath and keeping my mind open to any possibility. I feel these habits have impeded my learning to some degree. I still learn things but sometimes the learning occurs after I’ve been assessed on it, then I feel cheated because I knew the material I just didn’t apply it. When learning I get excited when I understand things, especially when I understand them well enough to talk and write about them. This excites me so much it makes me want to learn more and more. On the other hand, learning can be very stressful for me. I feel I have always been a good student and I expect nothing less of myself. Overall, I think I bring a lot of the tensions of learning upon myself because I want things to be perfect and this causes me spend what seems to be endless hours on projects that only take others an hour or two. I am trying harder to just go with the flow and put all of my thoughts into my work without worrying if it is right or wrong, as long as my thinking supports the idea on topic.

I have many interests in the field of speech pathology. However, at this point in my undergraduate career, I am particularly interested in children’s reading abilities and how early phonological awareness intervention may impact it. I am currently tutoring children in grades one and two that need help with reading. There are several techniques that may be used when tutoring a child who may have trouble reading. With this topic in I think an essential question for me would be: How may phonological awareness intervention impact a child’s early reading abilities? The only difference between this question and the last one is I changed the key word phonetic to phonological. I think the term phonological awareness would be more appropriate because I think this would give me a wider range of ideas to work with as opposed to phonetic awareness. I am familiar with this topic somewhat from our 422L we did at the daycare. I don’t know what types of phonological awareness intervention seem to be more helpful as opposed to others. As I learn about this topic I would also like to obtain statistics on this topic.

I have many interests in the field of speech pathology. However, at this point in my undergraduate career, I am particularly interested in children’s reading abilities and how early phonological awareness intervention may impact it. I am currently tutoring children in grades one and two that need help with reading. There are several techniques that may be used when tutoring a child who may have trouble reading. With this topic in I think an essential question for me would be: How may phonological awareness intervention impact a child’s early reading abilities? The only difference between this question and the last one is I changed the key word phonetic to phonological. I think the term phonological awareness would be more appropriate because I think this would give me a wider range of ideas to work with as opposed to phonetic awareness. I am familiar with this topic somewhat from our 422L we did at the daycare. I don’t know what types of phonological awareness intervention seem to be more helpful as opposed to others. As I learn about this topic I would also like to obtain statistics on this topic.