Literacy Through Listening: Reading with Audiobooks
My students need an assortment of 40+ high-interest audiobooks covering a variety of genres to increase their literacy rates during our Daily 5 literacy block.
You may remember growing up on a family member's knee, book in hand. Or the nightly bedtime story read to you by a loved one. Many of my students were not given this early exposure to books. Listening to reading is a fundamental part of learning how letters and words come together to form ideas.
The variety of students in our school is an amazing cross-section of our community.
With no single group making up more than 30% of our population, diversity is an integral part of our school day. With students from all parts of the world, sharing our diverse cultures is a core part of who we are. Unfortunately, with this diversity comes poverty. Over 12% of our student population are without a permanent home. The pressure to join a gang is always just around the corner. And now the district is cutting funding and resources for these students...the ones who need it the most. This will be our first year without a school librarian, due to budget cuts. With little access to books outside of school, it is imperative to provide these children with every opportunity to explore the many worlds that books offer while they are in school.
My Project
Access to books is paramount for these kids. When reading is a challenge rather than a pleasure, that access is revoked. Audio books serve many purposes, but the two most important are that they foster a love of reading and also help improve reading skills. When students hear what good reading sounds like, they are able to emulate the patterns, inflections, and tones- creating a truly immersive world from the books. With this increased literacy comes increased opportunity, and new weapons to fight the outside pressures that weigh upon them. By bringing the skills that they gain through our listening station to other parts of the curriculum, confidence and knowledge are exponentially increased, giving these students the opportunities that so many of us have taken for granted.
The world that these students face on a daily basis is vastly different from the one that many children in our country know.
The pressures of caring for themselves (and often their siblings) while parents are searching for jobs or a place for them to stay for the night are daunting. By giving these children access to the tools that they need, we work to break this cycle. Reading is the first step to a better life for these very deserving students. They love to learn; they just need the tools.
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