My students are from a robust, welcoming community on Maui that takes great pride in its Hawaiian heritage. They bring a special blend of linguistic diversity, background knowledge, prior experiences, and culture to our school. We are a Title I school in a low-income community; I have twenty-two English language learners and general education students in my classroom. Free breakfast and free lunch are available to every child in our building each day, which are now remotely served from our local intermediate school.
My students are creative, clever, and very enthusiastic about learning.
However, the majority of my students read below grade level and typically do not read on their own. They would benefit from a variety of engaging classroom books to help increase their interest in reading both in and out of the classroom. By giving students access to quality materials that appeal to a broad range of interests, my goal is to help students find the joy and satisfaction that comes from reading great books.
My Project
I believe that helping students become avid readers is one of my main roles as an educator.
Reading helps students become better writers, increases their vocabulary, makes students smarter, relieves stress, arms students against oppression, and will open up doors in my students' futures.
However, my kids can't discover the joy of reading unless they have well-crafted, interesting books that they can choose from. They need a large library of hand-picked books from stellar authors that address current issues and universal themes. They need to see what good writing looks like in order to become great writers themselves. They need a good story to get lost in so that they become voracious readers and develop loyalties to certain genres and authors.
For this to happen, however, the first step is to line all of my bookshelves with books filled with beautiful words.
More than half of 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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