Tips for Creating a Reading Specialist Resume
Objective
One of the most important parts of your reading specialist jobs resume is the objective. After you create a heading with your name and contact information, including an e-mail address, you need an objective. This is one statement that explains what type of job you are looking for and answers the question: What is your objective for turning in this resume? You are also summing up your skills that you will use at your new job. Here are two examples:
- To use my communication skills and expertise in reading development to instruct children in literacy classes.
- To use my interpersonal and organization skills to lead classroom teachers as a literacy coach.
Your objective may vary depending on what type of reading specialist job you are applying for.
Teaching and Other Job Experience
If you’re applying for reading specialist jobs, you probably have teaching experience in an elementary classroom or as a subject area teacher in middle or high school. Besides these positions, you may have had other work experience with children or maybe in a prior career. On your reading specialist jobs resume, you will want to list chronologically the jobs you’ve had as a teacher first, and you list the most recent job first. Put these jobs under the heading: Teaching Experience. When you list these positions, you’ll also want to list some of your responsibilities and duties–especially highlighting any reading instruction experience. For example:
- Fourth Grade Teacher, Hardin Elementary School; St. Louis, MO 2005-present
- Taught remedial reading to students in three fourth-grade classrooms.
- Tutored struggling readers after school two days a week.
When you are listing non-education related career experience, start with jobs out of college. You can list these under a section called: Other Work Experience. For example, maybe you started out with a finance degree, and so your first job was in a bank. You don’t need to list your responsibilities at these jobs. You list these careers on your reading specialist jobs resume, so that your prospective employer can see you have a consistent track record in seeking and keeping employment. If you have gaps in your employment, make sure to explain those in a cover letter.
Education
On your reading specialist jobs resume, you will want to include your reading specialist degree and your past degrees. Even if your bachelor’s degree was completed twenty-five years ago, you still need to include this in your education section of your resume. Similar to the section on job experience, you will want to list your most recent degree first, which should be your reading degree. Then you will have a master’s degree and a bachelor’s degree. You can also include any special certification you have obtained in this section.
Honors and Awards or Related Experience
The last section of your reading specialist jobs resume can be either: Honors and Awards or Related Experience. If you have received any honors or awards that relate to your reading specialist career, then include this section and explain the award after listing it (if it’s not well-known). If you have related experience in the field of reading instruction, but you weren’t paid for it (so it’s not listed under teaching experience), then you can include it here. For example, maybe you tutored in a program for low-income children as a volunteer.
The important thing to remember about your reading specialist resume is that you want to show how qualified you are as a teacher, your work ethic, and why you stand out from the crowd of applications districts will receive.
This post is part of the series: Working as a Reading Specialist
A reading specialist is one degree you can get that goes beyond a master’s degree but is not quite a doctorate. With a reading specialist degree, you can work in schools to help children’s literacy education.
