Imagine: you're sitting in a classroom. The AC is running, you can hear a train passing by, the intercom keeps interrupting with announcements, some other student is crying in the hallway, and you're trying, WITH ALL OF YOUR MIGHT, to understand what in the world the teacher is talking about. Sometimes, the teacher just sounds like the teacher from Charlie Brown, "wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah" because you're so overstimulated and distracted by all of the other sounds. Not only that, but you only hear 1/3 of those "wahs" because you are, in fact, deaf/hard of hearing. This is what my students go through on a daily basis.
Even though they are faced with many hardships, my students, encourage and inspire me every day.
My students come from some of the most impoverished areas of our city. They also face other challenges as well: coming from a single parent home, not speaking English at home, not having hearing devices for home use, and many others. No matter their struggles, my students come in every day with the biggest and brightest smiles; always eager to learn! They are truly the most deserving people.
My Project
My students have difficulty accessing and hearing letter sounds that have different frequencies. This is definitely the case for higher frequency letters such as: /s/, /f/, /p/, /t/, etc. Accessing letter sounds is imperative for reading and writing foundational skills. "Sounding it out" takes on a whole new meaning when you can't hear all of the sounds.
Square Panda allows students to play educational and engaging phonics games.
This creates excitement for learning something that can be daunting and scary. Help me to be able to provide a wonderful resource to my students!
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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. Leslie and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.