Time For Kids!......Reading Beyond the Textbook

Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.

I am a teacher in a Title I school in Chatham County, North Carolina. The poverty level is very high; 81 percent of students receive free or reduced lunch. I love teaching and working with children, but I am currently lacking the materials I need to teach reading the way that I believe is the most beneficial and fun. The majority of the students at Siler City Elementary do not speak English as a first language and much of our time is spent on acquiring language and reading skills. This year in my third grade class, I would like to enhance my reading instruction with TIME for Kids Magazine. TIME for Kids is a magazine designed for specific grade levels with current events and fun topics that interest children. The third grade language arts curriculum specifies that children should experience various types of literature, including nonfiction and information sources. Teaching with nonfiction literature can often be laborious for students due to all of the specific dates, names, and technical language in the text. It is also difficult because many students, especially English Language Learners (ESL Students), struggle with making connections to the experiences they are reading about. For these reasons I believe it would be beneficial to teach with current literature, such as TIME for Kids, written specifically for young audiences, rather than using the textbook stories only. This is not only a magazine that I will use as a part of my reading instruction, but it will also be beneficial to integrate with my social studies, science, writing, and math curriculums as well. I plan to use the magazine each week in my classroom for reading comprehension, sequencing, vocabulary development, questioning, main idea, fact and opinion, cause and effect, and point of view exercises. I am very excited that my students and I may have the opportunity to use this wonderful learning tool this year. If this grant is funded, each student will be able to have their own copy of the magazine to read from at school and take home to share with their families. In addition, we will receive a classroom map, fact cards, a teacher's guide and a copy of TIME Magazine.