Help me give my students age-appropriate books to teach foundational reading skills.
FULLY FUNDED! Mrs. Asaro's classroom raised $657
This project is fully funded
Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
My Students
My students are high schoolers empowered to do their best but are students with intellectual disabilities, or autism, which has affected their ability to learn at the same pace as same-aged peers. My class is enrolled in an NYC Specialized School in a high poverty area of the South Bronx. They face cognitive, physical, and emotional challenges that many of us will never have to encounter, every day. They are brave, resilient, and eager to learn, and come to school with a positive attitude each and every day. Students with disabilities require the most support in terms of their ability to achieve academic, social, and vocational success. Unfortunately, in a high poverty area, they are not always able to access the supplies they need to be successful. Additionally, this year, many of my students are living in shelters and experiencing homelessness.
My Project
My class, a group of 8 students with autism aged 14-17, has just entered high school. The concept of high school to students with disabilities is even more daunting than usual, as my students lack the foundational reading skills they'll need to be successful in any academic subject area. Known to many in the literary world, there is an extreme lack of low level, high-interest readers for high school-aged students with disabilities. As you could imagine, this deficit is exemplified further in high-poverty communities such as ours.
My students have big dreams, of transitioning back into inclusion programs, taking entry-level college classes, passing the GED, and of filling out job applications.
Each day, I witness their motivation and desire to be successful in reading, despite 14 plus years of unsuccessful attempts, but I have no books to offer them to truly engage them in this process. That's because books at foundational reading levels are written for five-year-old students.
We've been fortunate enough to start working with Saddleback's TERL Phonics program this year. We'll need the DISCOVER series books to continue working on foundational reading skills at age-appropriate levels. With the Fill Every Shelf match, we hope you'll help us to fill our shelves with books that are both accessible and engaging for our students. We can't thank you enough for supporting us!
Nearly all students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Asaro and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
