Every child deserves a positive, safe, nurturing and stimulating learning environment in which they can grow academically, socially, emotionally and physically. My role as an educator is to provide my students with this type of environment and education that will help them succeed academically and become lifelong learners. It is the responsibility of a literacy educator to provide students with this type of environment, but also to provide instruction that helps students become successful readers and writers. There are numerous programs and philosophies around literacy and reading. Through years of experience and research, you begin to develop your own creative approach to teaching these skills. After looking at several programs and seeing the positives and negatives of each, an integrated and balanced approach to literacy appears to be the best way to teach to the diverse needs of each student. As an educator, it is essential that goals include teaching students to be the best learners they can be. With this, teachers must choose between different literacy programs to meet the needs of all students. Providing a combination of approaches is best for teaching literacy. Providing students with the benefits of a basic reader and using children's books is the best way to teach literacy in the classroom. According to Pressley, a balanced literacy program is one that integrates the teaching of effective skills and a high awareness of holistic reading and writing. By integrating skills teaching and a holistic approach, students will be provided with the basic skills and knowledge they will need to learn to read. A balanced classroom literacy program should explicitly involve… half of the paper… technology provides students with the opportunity to succeed in reading and writing. As an educator, and perhaps future literacy educator, it is critical to teach students that learning is not something that only happens in school. Learning will happen every day throughout your life. Learning happens at school, at home, at a sporting event, at the mall, or on the computer. Learning happens everywhere. It is also important to teach students that reading is everywhere and will follow them for the rest of their lives. As educators, we must help students appreciate reading and develop a love for it that will last forever. It is our role therefore to provide the best education possible and use assessment that enables children to succeed. Most importantly, as lifelong learners ourselves, we must strive to ensure that our students become and remain so...