Kimberly Volkmann, middle school reading specialist

Q: What school were you at before?

A: University City I taught sixth through seventh graders mostly but I have also taught eighth grade a few years back.

Q: Why did you chose GCAA?

A: It’s a funny story actually my sister ran into Mrs. Irving at Home Depot, not knowing each other. And Mrs. Irving started talking about how she wanted to hire a reading specialists. And I had just started going to school to be a reading specialist since I prefer to have smaller classes so my sister suggested me; and I interviewed and got the job.

Q: What Is your goal for your students?

A: To improve their reading and writing. And to hopefully get them to love reading.

Q: What college did you graduate from and what is your degree in?

A: I graduated from Lindenwood University, and my degree is in middle school english grades 5th through 9th. And now i’m in school at Lindenwood to get my master’s in reading.

Q: What made you switch to reading specialist?

A:  I knew that I liked working with smaller groups of kids for one; and then I’m just very passionate about reading.  I feel that if you can read you can do anything. That’s how it starts, were always going to need to read. Even if you’re doing things digitally you’re always going to need to know how to read for your future; so to me it’s important. I think it’s the most important thing to know how to do.

Q: What does a reading class consist of?

A: So the way we try to set it up is that there’ll be at least three parts. Some parts are independent reading, another part may be what we call word work or word study; which is where you do games or vocabulary type things. The last part would be a writing component because writing goes right along with reading so I try to split the class up in thirds.