The cost of guided reading books from AKJ Educational Services is $674, including shipping and <a target="new" href="http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm" onclick="g_openWindow('http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm', 300, 800, 'fulfillwindow');return false;">fulfillment</a>.
This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
I teach spirited third graders on the south side of Chicago, in a charter school where almost all students are from a low-income background. This year I have a tremendous range of abilities in my classroom, spanning from students reading at or above grade level to students who cannot read early first grade books. While I aspire to challenge my students who are high-achievers, I am at the moment more concerned with reaching my struggling readers. I have a reasonable amount and variety of books in my classroom to suit the needs of my ?high? students; however, I do not have nearly enough resources to help my struggling readers. This is alarming as they are the students who so desperately need to get caught up!
I am pleading for guided reading books to use with these struggling readers. My school currently uses a basal reader (all students read the same textbook with stories inside), which poses a major problem for my struggling students. While they can often comprehend the story when I read it with them, the basal reader offers little in terms of independent reading practice. It does not allow for my students to practice the reading skills I teach on their own?they struggle so much to decode the words, they are unable to practice any higher ordered comprehension skills (making inferences, drawing conclusions, etc.). With a set of guided reading books targeted at their reading level in my classroom, I would be able to facilitate guided reading groups to help my struggling readers practice meaningful comprehension skills on books at their level.
My struggling readers would benefit enormously from having a set of guided reading books in our classroom because it would allow them to improve both their comprehension skills and their decoding abilities on books at their level. When students are forced to ?try? and read the basal reader with the rest of the class, they do no engage in authentic reading and instead spend the time frantically trying to keep up with the others and follow along. Students become frustrated and easily turned off of reading?exactly the effect I want to avoid when working with struggling readers. With guided reading books on their level my students will not only become better readers through explicit small group instruction, but they will also have a more positive attitude about reading!
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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. Flynn and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
