Technology is all around us. Help me to teach my students healthy ways to use and love technology! What better way than to connect technology with a world of imagination through reading?
Our school district has a low-income rate of 48%.
We have slightly less than 300 students at our school. 60% of those students are low-income.
What I love the most about my class is they are hungry to read! I have a great classroom library, however, for struggling readers, it can seem intimidating. They can get very frustrated that the only books they are able to read have big print and very few words on each page.
They will pick up a harder book to carry around so they can "feel" important. I have many books on CD and have, in the past, used CD players for students to listen to stories. However, the CD players have breaking, are being held together with tape, or continually run out of batteries. Batteries are expensive to keep replacing!
I am starting to replace those old CD players with iPods. We currently have a few iPods and the students LOVE using them!
My Project
I have requested four iPod nano digital players to improve literacy by having my students listening to a variety of reading levels, topics, and fluent readers. I want to transfer books on CD to the iPods so students can listen to them during our listening stations.
Without supported reading, students have to struggle to decode each word. Because of this, they often lose the "big picture" of what they are reading. It's not that they can't understand, they just have a barrier in their way - the printed word. With this barrier, learning is stopped. Remove the barrier and learning is possible!
Supported reading is reading with the support of recorded materials. Individuals read along with the books while they listen to the recording of the same material. When students are engaged in supported reading, they no longer have to labor over every word. Instead, they can read at a comfortable pace that allows them to enjoy the story!
When the barrier of print is removed, individuals who use supported reading experience many benefits: improved listening skills, increased vocabulary, improved word recognition skills, improved comprehension skills, and more exposure to the proper pronunciation of words.
Supported reading provides a model of fluent reading. It enables students to read the same grade-level material as their peers. There is no watering down of the words students are expected to read!
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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. Neels and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
