Help my students love the English language with games!

Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.

Have you ever been so bored that your eyes literally rolled back in their sockets? Probably not. Unfortunately, this has happened to several of my students recently due to the pressures of being 10-years-old at (gasp!) testing time. That is why I would like to purchase some games and other hands-on activities that build skills. As English teacher to 65 fifth graders at a very rigorous (think 10-hour days, Saturday school, and summer school) charter school in the Western Addition neighborhood of San Francisco, I prepare one of the city's most underserved populations for admission to college prep high schools and then college. My students enter the fifth grade at (on average) the second grade reading level, but 80% of KIPP graduates are currently enrolled in college. We couldn't achieve such great results if the teachers here didn't go out of the way to create learning experiences that grab and hold students' attention. However, creating the games and activities that I want my kids to experience can be very time-consuming, and the materials I create tend to fall apart quickly. My students would benefit greatly if they could play some store-bought games that reinforce the skills they are working so hard to master. I would like them to have access to the Reading Comprehension Games Library from Lakeshore. It includes 6 games that reinforce basic reading skills such as identifying the main idea, using context clues to discover the meaning of unknown words, and making inferences. I would also like them to play Vocabulary and Grammar Bingo, MadLibs, and the Language Adventures Game Show to build their skills in written and oral expression. Already this year, the fifth graders at KIPP have grown by leaps and bounds. Many of the students achieved between one and two grade levels of growth in the first five months of the school year. To continue to grow, my students need to continue to be engaged and to practice their skills in a variety of ways. These fun and challenging games would help them tremendously.