My students receive Special Education services within the General Education setting, mostly due to below-grade-level reading and math skills. While they are expected to move through the 7th-grade curriculum, many struggle with this due to the fact that most read below a fifth grade level. They struggle to read and comprehend the books, handouts, notes, and tests that we give them. In my support lab time, I dedicate a decent amount of time to reading and developing reading skills, because I believe that these students' school experiences would be profoundly improved if they were reading closer to their actual grade level.
I believe that weak reading skills are behind not only their academic performance but also their behaviors and demeanor toward schooling.
They also have limited foundational math skills, most not yet having mastered basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. As a result, they struggle to keep up with their math lessons where content is being taught under the assumption that the students can quickly add and subtract in their head the examples demonstrated to teach new concepts, keeping them lagging behind their peers.
My Project
My students need access to texts: books to read individually for pleasure, books to read together to supplement the content in their classes, textbooks, dictionaries, as well as educational magazines. I have a collection of books, and I am trying to grow my classroom library through other DonorsChoose projects (please check them out!).
Unfortunately, my classroom does not have a single bookshelf.
Instead, I am currently using two old podiums that have two shelves each to house my books. Obviously, this is not enough, and this past year many of my books remained packed away in boxes.
My project is simple: I am requesting two bookcases so that I have a place to put the books in my classroom, rather than storing them away in boxes. A teacher should never feel like they can't buy books for their class because they don't have a place to put them. To me, a dream classroom is one lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves brimming with books. I'd like to start creating my dream classroom, and it all starts with bookcases.
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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. Gregory and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
