Meet CRLP Teacher Leader, Janine Campos
Reading is a spark of joy and happiness for me now and for as long as I can remember.
As a little girl I loved to go to the library, but when I came in contact with our school librarian she was like a fire extinguisher. She was mean. I thought to myself, “If you don’t like kids, why do you work at a school?” I am proud to say her way of being did not dampen my spark, if anything it ignited it. As the eldest in my family, I spent a lot of time with my two younger siblings. I was able to share my love of reading with them. Before their first day of school, I had already taught them the letters of the alphabet. I saw a familiar spark in them that was in me as a little girl. Maybe I can be a teacher when I grow up? That thought became a truth over a decade ago. In my head and in my heart I think a teacher should be caring, calm and curious.
I genuinely care about all my students and how I show up for them. My way of being is very different from the librarian I encountered in school. As a teacher I am someone who never wants to go to the dark side of teaching. I always want to be a lifelong learner and never get burnt out or bitter. If I recognize those signs in me, I will pull myself out of the profession. When I see the spark in the eyes of learners it brings me so much joy. Although I am an adult, deep down inside, I am still that little girl making sure that I always put my best foot forward.
I’ve always been told that I am very calm. Anyone who would come to observe me whether it was an administrator, an impact teacher, student teacher, or high school student, they left my classroom in full agreement that I am peaceful and provide a tranquil learning space. The silence did not mean you are in trouble, but that this is a safe space and I want to be here with you. I taught kindergarten for 13 years and I found out later that my colleagues nicknamed me the kindergarten whisperer.
While I was a kindergarten teacher I set the standard for the 24 little lives in terms of literacy and everything really, but literacy is such a powerful skill. I follow the research in the CRLP. I want to solve the puzzle so I stay curious.
The bulk of the impact that the CRLP made was those 13 years I was a kindergarten teacher. I followed the research. The Literacy Framework for Instruction and Assessment by Dr. John Shefelbine is my scope and sequence for foundational skills in conjunction with the Common Core State Standards.
Each school year, I would emphasize phonemic awareness because that is what I learned from the CRLP. My December goal was for all my students to be able to identify the first sound, last sound, middle sound. This did not mean that the whole class got there by December, but they had a fair chance to do it and they got really close. It was because I emphasized phonemic awareness from the beginning of the year to December that I saw the difference. Next, I pushed phonics. I found that that was where I found the most success because students had skills to meet me in the middle. I saw them make their own connections and that made it possible for them to meet me in the middle. When students have strong foundational skills it makes my job so much easier.
In my current role as a language arts specialist, English Learner liaison and state testing coordinator in the National School District at Las Palmas Elementary School in National City, California I still use what I have learned from the CRLP. Just trust the research even if it feels like you are taking two steps forward and one step back…you are still advancing at a pace of one.