Another way to look at how to teach students how to read

Motivating myself is a challenging activity, let alone motivating someone else to do something. For the longest time, I had the fear of doing math problems because I used to think I was "slow." I really hated how most of the kids read the problem and understood what to do right away. I used to get easily demotivated, but I always had encouraging teachers who would spend afterschool hours to help me learn the math. In doing so, I was able to keep up with the class. However, in progressing years, I still needed the individual attention from my teachers. The problem was that I didn't have the self-confidence to try the math. Whenever I saw a problem, I would automatically shut down (lol, e-literacy taking over the world!). Math was always tedious to me, but when I did understand how to solve the problems, I felt satisfied. Last semester, I read a paper in Ed Psych that talked about how the importance of math doesn't lie in the fact that it's math and it's GREAT, but rather it is meant to help us develop our problem solving skills. I finally discovered the value of math, and now I really wish I had taken more math classes. Before, math used to be a pointless subject, but after recognizing that is a helpful practice that can help me develop better strategies to cope with my problems, I fascinated by it. So, I think the challenge that a teacher often faces is helping the students discover the value in the work so that it becomes playful and fun. This reminded me of my post about finding the beauty in the color yellow because I disliked it at first, but now I like it because I remember all the happy things in my life like my grandmother or the friend who taught me to garden... :)