Each September, I am greeted with the faces of 20 kindergarten students. All of my students come from different backgrounds, family situations, and economic statuses. But, throughout my years of teaching, I have found one thing in common: my students love having fun and they enjoy learning. Reading and listening to books is one way that kindergarten students become engaged with their learning
When asked what they are most excited about learning, each year many of my kindergarten friends tell me "I can't wait to learn to read!" They talk about Clifford, Biscuit, and Pete the Cat Books.
These books make them excited about reading, and they are often books students have at home.
My Project
What do Pete the Cat, Little Critter, Clifford, Mittens, Biscuit, and Froggy have in common? They are all favorite book characters of young readers. Kindergarteners come to school so excited about reading, but sometimes that excitement gets hindered when students realize that learning to read takes quite a bit of practice. When students are engaged with what they are reading, they could read and look at books for a long time.
Familiar books and favorite characters help student engagement when it comes to learning how to read.
When students already know about a book character, they are more easily able to talk about the pictures and figure out the book's plot. They are motivated to find the character's name within the text on each page and want to be able to read the exact words that were written about the character. This past year, many of my students would ask me where our books about Biscuit or Pete the Cat were. Unfortunately, we could only ever find 1 or 2 books in our classroom library about these characters. This project would help my classroom library grow to include lots of favorite character books. And, in turn, it would help to motivate and encourage my young readers to practice the new (and exciting) skill of reading. Thank you for all of your support!
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. Tabbert and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
