Social media will have you feeling like you need to go back and get a teaching degree in order to teach your kids how to read. But trust me, you don't. I have a teaching degree and I still did not know how to teach reading. But I figured out how and I taught both my kids how to read. I want to tell you what I wish someone had told me when I got started.

I quit teaching in the middle of my first year. I enrolled in Teach for America after graduating college and was teaching in an inner-city school. I was not adequately prepared for the experience. As a result, I developed serious health issues that landed me in the hospital.