Help Me Read at Home: Audio Books for English Learners
My students need to have audio books 'read aloud' to them at home to increase their English language reading and comprehension, and portable CD players.
There's nothing like seeing a child come to the library and choose a book for the first time! For our students who are refugees, this is a magic moment - they have never had the opportunity to experience taking a book home... But what if no one at home can read it to you?
Our school is loving, engaging - and diverse!
We have about 2,000 students in PreK-4 and over 25% of our students speak another language at home. About half of those - around 400 students - speak Burmese as their native language. They and their families have come to the United States to escape religious persecution in their home country (now Myanmar).
These families are anxious to take advantage of their opportunities here. The children work hard in school, and their families want to support them. We have a very dedicated staff of English Language Development teachers, but everyone in the school collaborates to teach these delightful, interested, curious, and hard-working students.
My Project
Research continues to demonstrate that reading aloud to children helps their reading skills, language comprehension, and vocabulary development. The CD players and audio books requested in this project will allow our students to experience that important 'reading aloud' time, even when their parents are unable to read English. Third and Fourth grade students who have tested as non-English proficient will check out a CD player and a set of five books each week, so they can listen to a different book at home with their parents every night. These books are very early level readers, aimed at our newest arrivals. I will work with the ELD teachers to identify the students who will most benefit from these sets. There are both fiction and nonfiction books for them to experience.
Being uprooted and establishing a new life far away from all you've known is already difficult.
Learning English quickly helps our newest students fit in and be able to participate more fully in the classroom. Being able to listen to a book being read while following along will add to these children's English language skills, and being able to do so at home will involve the family in their child's education.
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
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. T. and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.