Imagine that you could not read. No more sitting on a Sunday morning relaxing with a romance novel. No more staying up late riveted to the latest suspense thriller. No more discussions over the classics with friends. Think how much the joy of reading has given you, and if it wasn’t there anymore.
I work with students with mild cognitive impairments along with a range of other disabilities at an occupational high school in Chicago. The freshmen in my English classes have a wide range of interests and abilities, but are connected by the fact that they struggle with academics—especially reading. Many of my students are non-readers, while others can read up to third grade material. When you are reading at this level, you lose many of novels that would catch your interest in high school. Instead you are stuck with Dr. Seuss, Arthur, and other books for much younger children. Although my students may be lower functioning academically, they still want to (and have the right to) read things that interest them.
To help my students enjoy listening to books for pleasure, I have been working for the past 5 years setting up a library with an audio center in my classroom. This way, when we are working on different activities or centers, my students can listen to a wide range of literature. I have used grants from other foundations, along with my own money, to get many different types of books on tape along with nice earphones so four to six students can listen at a time.
The problem is that my CD player is older than my students (18 years old!), and I just found out today when I was trying to show the students how to use it, that it no longer plays CDs. Both my students and I were very disappointed. I also found that one of my nice new earphones had gotten stepped on and broken because there is nowhere to store them.
To get my audio center up and running again, I would need a CD player and an audio caddy to keep the CD player and earphones in so they would not get wrecked again. I’m not looking for the fanciest CD player, or a high tech audio caddy- just something basic to get my students back to doing what they enjoy, listening to literature.
More than half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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