In an inner-city school and with difficult personal and academic circumstances, my students do not have exposure to powerful children's literature. Without sufficient books in my classroom to capture their interest, they have not been able to discover the joy and importance of reading.
My students are a combination of learning disabled, autistic, speech and language impaired, as well as MR children in a self-contained 12:1:1 classroom.
They significant academic challenges, and many face personal challenges in their homes. Our school is an impoverished part of a large city in New York State. It has very little funding and thus very little supplies. Because of my students' wide educational needs, they absolutely need a variety of supplies and books that would engage them as different types of learners.
My students, most important of all, are hilarious, fun, and very, very smart. They just need a little help getting to be the successful young adults I know they all are going to be.
My Project
My classroom library needs a desperate makeover. My intention is to create a cozy space with drapes and rugs, and large comfy pillows that would make the library an inviting and exciting place to be. But without children's literary classics like books by Judy Blume, this cozy environment would be largely incomplete. Historical fiction like "Chains" by Laurie Anderson, among other like texts will allow me to connect reading to other content areas, making sure to keep my students focused on our one, most important goal of the year-- to become the best readers we can be. I hope that having all these new texts to borrow and explore will help my children move up 5 reading levels this upcoming year. It's an ambitious goal, but having these books, I believe, will serve as the fuel to reach it.
Without passion, there cannot be change.
I want my kids to be passionate about reading and I believe that if this passion is ignited, it can very well change the rest of their lives.
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