I am the librarian at a small public school which is nestled in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina. My school has 150 students of many diverse and unique backgrounds. We are a Title I school with well over 65% of our students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. Almost 15% of our students are homeless. Numerous families receive weekend food assistance in their child's backpack from our local food bank.
Many of my students are reluctant readers and an academic success does not come easily or quickly.
In our school, we strive to create warm, safe and welcoming classrooms while maintaining a fun, creative learning atmosphere.
My Project
An essential part of early reading skills is to decode the illustrations to help understand the text. This is especially helpful for ESL students or students with learning difficulties. Thankfully, in the last 10 years, many illustrators have created books that are either wordless or have minimal wording to help emphasize to children the need to read the illustrations. By reading the illustrations students can grasp higher level language, character's feelings and emotions, setting, time periods and so much more.
While I have had great success the past two years with teaching this skill set, I would like to expand my teaching repertoire with additional books.
These books will also be part of the media center's collection for students and staff to check out. I have asked for hardback and library bound books as many students will be using these materials and they will hopefully last longer with more durable binding.
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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. Lunsford and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.