My students need exposure to fluent reading so that they can grow as readers, and having access to iPads and amazing reading apps will help make this happen!
I am beyond excited to be looping this year! This means that all the little cherubs who were with me for 1st grade (there were 28 of them at last count!) will join me for 2nd grade. My students are a plucky bunch. Many of them live in worlds where their basic needs aren't always met. They live in a world of food insecurity and housing instability, yet their resilience is boundless. They are inquisitive, enthusiastic, endearing, enchanting, and, of course, just the right amount of mischievous! And the one school activity that they enjoy the most? Reading. And especially reading with iPads.
Last year my students had access to iPads in our classroom but, alas, this year we will have none because iPads are only available to 1st grade classes!
There's nothing like curling up with a good book. In my classroom, my students do precisely this...sometimes it's a whole group activity with me as the reader, or it can be a partnership activity where students read to one another. Eventually reading becomes an independent activity, but in order for students to become independent readers, they need to HEAR fluent reading. And a lot of it.
My Project
This is where having iPads in my classroom comes into play. Many of my students do not come from homes where nighttime rituals include bedtime stories. This lack of exposure to fluent reading hampers literacy growth in more ways than you'd imagine. Would you believe that...
A student who reads 20 minutes/day will hear 1,800,000 words per year WHEREAS a student who reads 5 minutes/day will hear only 282,000 words?
Without exposure to vocabulary, decoding and reading fluency becomes a more daunting task. Students spend most (if not all) of their energy attempting to "sound out words" and subsequently aren't able to dive deeper into their reading. Identifying characters and their traits, analyzing cause and effect, locating main ideas and supporting details--these are skills that are best practiced when you hear a fluent reading of a text.
I am extremely proud of my classroom library. My students have access to tubs of books grouped by reading levels, by interest, by author, and by genre. But I would also like my students to have access to iPads that are loaded with reading apps! When I had iPads in my classroom last year, I found that after listening to a story on an iPad, students would ask for help locating the story (or a similar story) in my classroom library! Students would talk about their reading, making book recommendations to each other. Some students became "experts" on topics like frogs or volcanoes. And all of this happened in 1st grade! Having continued access to iPads in the classroom will encourage my now 2nd-graders to continue on their reading journeys. Thank you!
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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. Messina and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
