Help my students expand and achieve their voice by building their vocabulary! I work in a high-need community, and my students have a low vocabulary compared to other students their age in more economically stable communities. I currently teach 7th grade to a diverse student body with a high ESL population in an emerging K-8 school. This means that this year, we are only a K-7, and next year we will complete the transition to a K-8.
Because the K-8 model is new to our school, my students have access to mostly elementary resources! The dictionaries are not only outdated, they are geared to very young students and do not contain the words that my students are looking up. My students are far behind their more economically-stable peers in their vocabulary development, and I believe this is holding back their reading and writing levels, not to mention their testing scores. I want to turn that around for them and expand their vocabulary, and with it their access to bigger and better books. I need to prepare them for high school and college!
I need 25 copies of good college level dictionaries and thesauruses. I have recently implemented a huge vocabulary unit that integrates into all of their curriculum (reading, social studies, math, etc.). But we are finding out together that it is very difficult to expand your vocabulary when you are lacking the proper resources! My students are engaged in this project. I have told them explicitly why we are studying vocabulary so much and how important it is to their reading and writing. They are engaged, and they want to expand their horizons!
Please help my students achieve what others already have - a vocabulary that will improve their lives and set them on the course to a bright educational future. This project is important to my students. They understand that improving their vocabulary will give them that leg up they need in high school and maybe even help them write fantastic college scholarship applications and essays! It is important to me as a teacher to improve their education and their lives. Thank you so much for reading and caring!
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