Funded Sep 4, 2022Reading is a little different in an early childhood setting - these children can't 'read' words yet, but can begin to identify some letters. Mostly, we focus on listening to stories and looking at the pictures - what do you see? Who is feeling what kind of way?
The books we were able to get with this grant have not only been helpful for building these baseline skills, but have also had the beautiful impact of showing children stories about people that look like themselves and their friends. Just recently, as we read "I Love My Beautiful Hair", all four students listening jumped up and grabbed T to come look - "look, T, it's you! It's you!" Watching T - a young, nonspeaking black girl with ever-changing hairstyles - point to the book and softly say "me" is the kind of experience that classrooms are truly made for.
Our books are already well-loved, from reading in the morning at drop-off to morning meeting and story time before we drift off to nap. It's a beautiful thing to see children leaf through the books and bring them up to me asking for "one more", and even more beautiful to see them plop next to each other and say "you read it to me!"”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Balch