I teach 40 preschoolers every day. Preschool is usually their first exposure to school and I want to make it a positive experience. Students come to school in the morning or in the afternoon for 3 hours at a time. I want my students to be reading at the end of the year. My students come from a very economically diverse background. A lot of my students are learning English as their second language. They speak Somali, Vietnamese, Spanish, and Chinese. I have a lot of different cultures represented in my classroom. My biggest challenge is accommodating these different languages. Many students come to preschool not speaking or knowing any English.
My Project
This year our preschool is going away from letter of the week. The research around teaching literacy does not support letter of the week. Teaching letters in isolation (letter of the week) is not best practices and is not how children learn their letters. Research shows, children learn letter identification by learning letters that are meaningful to them, letters in their name. They are learn letters by constant exposure to letters in the environment.
I want to make sure I am doing what is developmentally appropriate for children, which is why I want to have more literacy related materials present in the classroom.
Last year I opened a literacy center. I put a few materials in this area but it is not a very popular area. With this project I am hoping to beef up the literacy center so more children are going to this area. I am wanting to give them experience with letters and writing, but need to materials to do this. I believe that the supplies I have asked for will increase their interest in literacy and learning their letters in a way which is supported by research.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Malone and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.