Providing High-Interest Texts To Students In Wild And Wonderful WV!
My students need challenging and captivating books that will keep them intrinsically motivated to read, push them to think critically and teach them valuable life lessons.
My students come from hard working families in the mountains of West Virginia. Nearly half of them live below the poverty line with limited access to opportunities for enrichment outside of the classroom. Despite the many struggles they face at home, my students are very resilient, enthusiastic and most of all, kind. For many of them, school is their favorite part of the day and they walk in each morning excited to be challenged and learn something new.
My students are bright, energetic individuals who are intrinsically motivated to read.
Each day, I listen to students’ excitement when it is time for independent reading or read-aloud time. They show wild curiosity for what happens in an upcoming chapter or the next book in a series; however, they often lack this drive to read when it comes to whole group instruction. Therefore, my students need more high-interest, engaging texts based on their interests, to help them better achieve their literacy goals and maintain their avid love for reading.
My Project
I would like to purchase class sets of texts for several literary novel studies in my third-grade classroom. I created this project after looking at my upcoming students’ reading levels, reviewing student work, and communicating with teachers. The following texts were carefully chosen based on my students’ needs and interests, my prior experience with the texts and other teachers’ recommendations from their third-grade classrooms all over the U.S. The books I selected are: "The One and Only Ivan", by Katherine Applegate, "The Lemonade War", by Jacqueline Davies, "Poppy", by Avi, and "The Witches", by Roald Dahl.
These rich, high interest texts will meet the needs of my students because they will push them to think critically, broaden their vocabulary and teach them valuable life lessons.
Because I know most of my students will already be reading above a third-grade reading level at the beginning of the year, these texts will help me go beyond the levels that my basal reading curriculum can provide. While these texts will allow advanced readers to delve deeper into higher level text analysis, their themes are also appropriate for a variety of learners, which will make it easy to differentiate and supplement instruction for my lower level readers. Through a guided novel study approach, with gradual release of responsibility to students (ex. Literature circles), I believe students will be motivated to read to achieve, if not exceed, their literacy goals.
Lastly, the purchase of these books will ensure that every student in my class will receive a copy of the book to read and share with his/her family at home. I am hoping that students will share their excitement for reading and that I will be able to increase parent involvement with literacy at home and in the classroom.
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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 Ms. Glance and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
