My students are hard working 5th graders who are in the final year of their elementary school experience. The majority of my students come from lower socio-economic families who often work long hours at menial jobs, so money is tight and time is precious when it comes to their family situations.
These 11 and 12 year olds are fast becoming responsible for their own learning.
At the beginning of the year we discuss what it means to set personal goals for their education and how they can start achieving those goals. By the end of the year, many of my students have begun to see how their hard work has paid off, and now start to approach me with, "I wish I had been reading more at home from the beginning!"
Putting together the situations my students come from with their budding sense of personal responsibility, several have begun to come to me asking for "extra" work to do at home. Very few things make a teacher feel more excited than when students ask for things to bring home!! My desire is to find materials that I can send home with students to help.
My Project
My students need and want extra reading practice at home. Parents have expressed a desire to help students, but they have a limited amount of time and understanding. Students have access to library books, however many students, especially those who struggle to read and comprehend, cannot seem to get motivated to read chapter books. Research shows that reading at least 15 minutes a day improves reading levels, comprehension, and vocabulary skills. So how can I combine all these needs into a manageable situation?
I want to create weekly reading folders, customized to each student's reading level, which contains a short reading passage along with comprehension questions.
This will give each student a short-term reading goal they can accomplish, along with being on their individual level. Each of the books I am requesting contains 36 leveled readers along with comprehension and skill questions. This will allow me to create a collection of over 400 passages that can be circulated throughout my students over the course of the school year.
Parents who want to help students, but have a limited amount of time and understanding themselves, can assist with a quick, structured assignment. It should take no more than 15 minutes each day to read the passage and discuss the questions, thereby meeting both the needs of students who need to read each day and their parents who have limited time to help. If students are successful, we should see students reading and comprehension abilities rise!
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