Rising Readers!

Funded Feb 26, 2017

The first graders in our class have begun to use the listening center in our classroom thanks to the materials you have generously donated. With the books, stereo, headphones and audio CDs, students are exposed to concepts about print, the English language, and how a reader fluently reads a text to support their reading comprehension. This center has fostered a love for reading in our classroom and children eagerly await the next moment that they can sit at the listening center with a book in their hands.

Reading instruction in our classroom takes place everyday, multiple times a day. Students participate in shared reading, during which a teacher reads with students from a big book for an entire week, each day focusing on a particular reading skill (comprehension, fluency, decoding, and so on). Students also participate in a lesson each day, during which a particular reading skill/strategy is emphasized and students subsequently practice that skill during independent and partner reading time. We also have blocks of time during the week during which students listen to a book read aloud by their teachers to strengthen and support the practice and development of reading comprehension skills.

The listening center has provided an engaging opportunity for students in our classroom to practice and reinforce the reading skills and strategies that they are taught everyday. All students in our classroom have shown enthusiasm for our new listening center, particularly English Language Learners in our classroom who are working on increasing their bank of high frequency words and reading books fluently. Thank you so much for your donations that have had such a positive impact on our first graders' reading lives.”

With gratitude,

Ms. Messina