Past projects 3
Spanish Readers to Support Language Proficiency
Funded Aug 2, 2023¡Mil gracias! Thank you so much for your generous donation to our classroom. We had a chance to browse the new book selections yesterday and my AP Spanish students were thrilled at the more advanced reading options. They loved the different cultural topics that are presented in the different novels and appreciate the opportunity to challenge themselves with higher-level reading.
My students will be reading at least two times per week during our free reading time. Students have the chance to choose a book and silently read. We follow up with their reading with different low-risk comprehension activities. Students might choose a few new vocabulary words to remember and try to use during the week. They might draw what they understood. They might try to retell part of the story to their partner. All of these activities help students to grow in their language proficiency.
We appreciate your support and can't wait to get reading again later this week!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Dierdorff
This classroom project was brought to life by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and 4 other donors.Spanish Readers to Support Language Proficiency
Funded May 6, 2022Thank you so much for your generous support of our classroom and of language acquisition. My students were thrilled to see the new titles and wanted to dive into reading right away! Such a win!
In our classroom we have two silent reading periods per week. Students are free to choose any book to read and we do a short, low-stakes comprehension activity afterwards. Students have read many of the books that we already had, so the new titles helped immensely with motivation, especially in the spring.
Students commented that the new books, aimed for novice students, were easier to understand making reading more compelling. There was also a reader about Kobe Bryant that was very popular. Hearing quotes like "I want to read that book next time." are music to a language teacher's ears. Thank you again!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Dierdorff
This classroom project was brought to life by Dollar General Literacy Foundation and one other donor.Spanish Readers to Support Language Proficiency
Funded Jan 17, 2019Thank you for our new books! I introduced our Free Reading Program last year with a few books that I bought with my personal money. After having read and heard from different leaders in the language teaching field about the benefits of incorporating silent reading into the curriculum, I new I wanted to try it out. I have learned from many teachers that explaining that reading helps with vocabulary and grammar acquisition naturally to the students was helpful so that they understood they "why". I also talk about reading hints before each reading session. I encourage my students to make educated guesses based on the context clues or to utilize cognates (words that look similar in different languages) to help with comprehension. These hints have carried over to reading assessments and have given my students confidence with their reading skills.
In my classroom, students typically read two days out of the week for 7-10 minutes depending on language level. The books that you helped purchase all have glossaries in the back of the book for help with new words or structures. The books also limit the words and structures used which means more repetition!
My students were so excited to see new titles. Many first year students were drawn to the easy readers and felt a lot of confidence when reading. My second year students commented that I have such a variety of books that everyone could find something they liked to read. Thank you for this! I wanted to appeal to all students to encourage reading here in my classroom and ideally reading for pleasure at anytime in their lives. We appreciate your support of language learning and reading!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Dierdorff