Kindergarteners read with their hands!!

I am a kindergarten teacher at Old Richmond Elementary School in Tobaccoville, NC. Our school is in a rural area and has a population of about 550 students with almost half of our students receiving free or reduced lunch. In my classroom, my students come to me from diverse backgrounds and varying pre-kindergarten experiences - if any at all. One of the most important skills that my students need to acquire during their year in kindergarten is learning the letters, sounds and learning to put the sounds together to make words. If they do not learn this skill at this age, they will be delayed as they continue in school and try to advance as readers. For many years, phonics was a forgotten component as many schools were using the "whole language approach". Research shows that phonemic awareness (knowledge of letters and letter sounds) is the most critical component children need to acquire reading skills. I am fortunate enough to have come from another state where there was a phonics program in place and I've seen the benefits first hand. Recently, our school district provided all kindergarten and first grade teachers with a wonderful program called Phonics Lessons Letters, Words, and How They Work. This program provides teachers with training and lessons designed to help teach the skills needed to develop phonemic awareness. Key components for using this program effectively are the use of hands-on manipulatives which I am lacking enough for each child in my class. I am requesting sets of upper case and lower case magnetic letters and a magnetic board for every two students in my class so they can work as partners as we do activities working on letters and sounds in small group settings or whole group activities. I would also like to get sets of jumbo-sized magnetic letters and a larger magnetic board for myself and for my assistant to use as we foster the students through their phonemic lessons. Concepts that will be taught and reinforced through these hands-on activities are recognizing that a letter has a name and a shape, seeing that letters are different from each other and noticing the parts of a letter. Once the teacher lesson is presented with the jumbo letters, the students would then work in partners using the smaller magnetic plastic letters sorting the letters presented. Each pair would use a set of small letters and a magnetic board. This way all the students get a chance to see and feel the letters, which helps them be able to sort them and describe their curves, humps and straight edges of each letter. All children deserve to learn how to read regardless of their economic background. It is essential for this to start in kindergarten for them to be successful in their years to come. I want to provide my students with the best instruction to start them on this journey into reading and writing having "No Child Left Behind". Being able to provide varying lessons and manipulatives would assist in this instruction and help to make learning more meaningful and fun.