My goal as a literacy educator is that each student leaves my class better equipped to read, write, and contribute to society than when they arrived. My teaching philosophy mirrors those goals. A recent New York Times article interviewed an educator who claims that there are three additional “R”s on which we should focus: “…relationships, reflection, and resilience”. I endeavor to weave these ideas into my procedures and instructional methods. I have been teaching for eight years. Through the years of teaching I have taught English to every grade from seventh through twelve, high school Spanish, elementary summer school, GED, adult basic education, and university composition. Each teaching assignment and new population has taught me new things about great teaching. At this point, I am an instructional chameleon, changing my methods according to the needs of the students I am teaching. How do you help students who are struggling with reading comprehension? Many of my students arrived in my ninth grade English class reading at elementary school levels. As a result, I began to use a variety of instructional methods specifically designed to assist struggling readers, including intense vocabulary intervention, close reading and annotating difficult text, as well as graphic organizers to prepare for oral and written textual analysis.