My students need a complete listening center with a boombox, multiple headphones, and individual volume controls in order for them to independently listen to stories and aide in their discovery of reading.
As Jill Lepore said, "In Kindergarten, you can learn how to be a citizen of the world." I truly believe a child's first year of school lays the foundation for the rest of their life, as they are not only learning core academic skills, but core social and emotional skills as well. The foundation laid in Kindergarten assists children in navigating the world we live in and evolving into successful human beings. Kindergarten is an exciting time of growth and change, and I can't imagine teaching any other grade level.
What I enjoy most about my Kindergarten students, is that we truly are a diverse community of learners.
Each year, I welcome children into my classroom with differing cultural backgrounds, ethnicities, home languages, and academic abilities. Among our school's population of students, 59 different countries are represented and 40 languages are spoken. Yet each year, we all come together as one community and assist each other in growing to our fullest potentials.
My Project
A new listening center would give my students the ability to explore books independently during their center time and would further enrich their road to becoming a reader. A listening center allows students to listen to stories being read aloud to them while following along in the physical book. This is a crucial, first step to reading as it teaches children how to handle books, how to track words on a page, and how to actively listen to, comprehend, and recall a story. Following each story, the students would have an accompanying "book report," in which they can mark whether or not they've liked the story, and illustrate their favorite scene from the story.
This listening center would give my students the chance to be in charge of their own reading.
They would be able to select books that they are interested in, listen to the story at their own pace and have it repeated as many times as they like, and give voice to whether or not they've enjoyed the story. Studies have shown that the more exposure a child has to books, the stronger the reader they will become.
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
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. Meyer and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
