Why Did I Start Cheryl Literacy?

I have been thinking about how to share my teaching experience for quite a few years now. I sure do have a lot of it since I started teaching in 1992. It doesn’t seem possible that it’s been that long, and I am not done yet; not by a long shot!

I loved teaching, even before I graduated college. It was the first time in my life I was praised by so many people for my ideas, creativity, and organization, which all came effortlessly to me. I knew I had found my calling. Of course, it helped that I have always enjoyed being around kids. I became a mother’s helper at age 9 and officially started babysitting at 12. Kids still gravitate towards me, warming up quickly. 

After graduating from college with an elementary education degree, I was lucky enough to get a job teaching fourth grade in a private school. I couldn’t get a public school job because I didn’t have my master's degree, so I knew I had to go back to school to advance my career. 

When faced with the decision of choosing a major, I immediately knew I wanted to focus on reading. I had seen students come to me as fourth graders still struggling to read, and I wanted to know how to help them. Once I earned my Reading Masters degree in 1997, I wondered why at least some of what I had learned in my master's program about how students learn to read hadn’t been taught to me during my undergraduate work. Shouldn’t every elementary teacher be taught how to teach reading? You’d be surprised how many teachers are still not taught this! I was taught to read with phonics, so why weren’t all kids still being taught that way? I started to question the idea that if we surround children with books, learning to read will just come naturally. Maybe that worked for some kids, but certainly not all kids.

I took my newfound knowledge of how kids learned to read and landed a reading specialist position in a public elementary school. During that time, I had started a family and decided when baby number three arrived I wanted to take a longer maternity leave to give everything I had learned about teaching reading to my own children. Having experience as both a teacher and a parent was eye-opening. This unique perspective has given me the ability to understand and explain the bigger picture of a child’s reading journey.

When my maternity leave was over, I was hired as a reading specialist in my home district. It was a middle school position, which I had never taught, but felt fairly confident I could. It turned out, everything I had learned from teaching reading in elementary school was applicable. For ten years, I loved teaching reading to fifth through eighth graders.

When an elementary reading position opened up in my district, I jumped at the chance to go back to the beginning grades, with the hope that fewer students would still be struggling by the time they were in middle school. I have been back at the elementary level for nine years. 

Two years ago, I started hearing a buzz about the Science of Reading. When I realized the Science of Reading is essentially everything I learned in my master's program, I knew I had been right all along; kids learn to read systematically, not just by exposure. Of course, I also have proof of that firsthand since there are more books in my house than one human should own, yet reading did not just magically happen for my own children. Luckily, they had some excellent teachers and a pretty cool mom. ;)

I am now very firm in my belief that reading should be taught explicitly. It’s not just about reading the words on the page; it’s about a deeper understanding of how words work. This is something everyone needs so they can be successful in reading, spelling, and writing.

Whether you are a teacher, parent, grandparent, or caregiver, all adults in a child’s life can contribute to their reading and learning success. I hope you enjoy following me here at Cheryl Literacy. Feel free to message me with questions, comments, or suggestions. Thanks and Happy Reading!!