Upon reflecting on my work over the past two years, I can say without a doubt that it had positive outcomes on both my teaching practice and my students' learning. In terms of my teaching practice, I am determined to continually grow in my role as an educator by researching best practices, especially related to literacy instruction. The things I have learned in my courses and my own research have enabled me to identify students' strengths and weaknesses in literacy and address their needs in more effective and specific ways.

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My compelling question challenged me to research strategies I can incorporate into my daily instruction to build background knowledge. My students' response to these strategies and activities has been overwhelmingly positive. I have seen my students take ownership of their learning by organizing information, engaging in whole group discussion, making personal connections during reading, and creating amazing projects using multimodal tools. They have also shown incredible responsibility in using technology tools, like Piktochart, ChatterKid, and Google Earth, to dive deeper into topics we are exploring in reading. I can easily tell which activities have resulted in stronger student engagement, because my students have asked to do them, over and over again. Overall, I have seen students grow in their ability to collaborate and use their own background knowledge to create a rich learning environment for the whole class.

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In conclusion, this study has confirmed that it is possible to to help all students make meaning of text, in spite of vastly different levels of background knowledge. I look forward to fine-tuning and expanding my ability to utilize these strategies in my literacy instruction for years to come!

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