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RRCNA Membership Spotlight: Ashley Martin

Published On: January 23rd, 2024 | Categories: Latest News |

Learn about your colleagues from across the country who do whatever it takes as part of the Reading Recovery Community! Ashley received a professional development award to attend LitCon this year, thanks to generous donors from the Foundation for Struggling Readers.

Share a favorite Reading Recovery memory.

My favorite Reading Recovery memory is from last school year. I had a student named Henry. Henry had just become a big brother, and he loved his baby brother, Palmer, more than anything. Every day while writing, he would compose a “Me and Palmer…” story. His stories ranged from things they liked to do together play with, foods they ate, and books they read together (keep in mind, Palmer is a newborn). His stories were creative and fun to read, especially because he was so excited to write them. Henry grew to be a phenomenal writer as his vocabulary increased, and he gained control of how authors record their stories. It was a joy to watch Henry grow as a writer as he wrote about a topic he truly loved: his baby brother.

What is your favorite book?

Before We Were Yours

What do you like to do for fun?

For fun, I enjoy spending time outdoors with my family, having dinners with friends, and spending lazy weekends with a good book. When the weather is nice, we enjoy walking around our neighborhood, visiting the park, and walking downtown. It’s a time for us to enjoy each other’s company without the hustle of the busy day. If outdoors is not possible, then family game night is our go-to. It’s fun to relax while we engage in a little family competition to see who is victorious.

Dinners out with close friends are another one of my favorite things. Good food and good company always make for fun and memories that last.

When it’s just me, I always love to curl up with a good book and escape on an adventure. My favorite genre is realistic fiction during the Regency period or WWII.

What insights do you expect to gain from attending LitCon?

By attending LitCon, I hope to grow in my knowledge of best practices for literacy instruction. I want to continue to have skills to teach my Reading Recovery students that yield high outcomes. I also want to be a literacy leader in my building and help build teacher capacity in literacy instruction. By attending LitCon, I can attend sessions presented by the best in our field. I gain so much from their strategies and approaches to literacy instruction. I always take back something I’ve learned during the conference and use it in my teaching and share it with my colleagues.