Reading and Literature

This project will include both print and digital materials including audiobooks and reading websites. The students will be given a list of books from Building Block Award Winners, Show Me Readers Award, Geisel Award Winners and Honor Books and Caldecott Medal and Honor Books. These award reading books have different reading levels for diverse learners' abilities. This project will also utilize the Starfall website which is a free children's website where they learn basic reading skills. This website is geared for children from Pre-K to Grade 3.  It has a parent-teacher center page where they can find resources and lesson plans that are aligned for classroom curriculum. This website will help the struggling readers enjoy and appreciate reading because of the simple and fun way they're introduced to the children and also provides reading materials to those who are more advanced in their reading skills. The students will also use Libby app where they can borrow ebooks and digital audiobooks from the public library. Tumblebooks is also another resource that will be utilized. Tumblebooks is a curated database of children's ebooks for grades K-6 that can be accessed also through the public library for free. It includes animated, talking picture books, read-along books, non-fiction books as well as graphic novels. Tumblebooks will be a good resource for students who are more visual learners through the animated picture books.  Another resource is Unite for Literacy website where students can listen or read-along non-fiction books.

The preparation and promotion for this project will start in September and will kick-off in October until the end of school year in May. Each student will be encouraged to listen or read five books each month. At the end of the month, they will fill out a hand-print with words or pictures with the books they read, one book per finger either independently or with the help of an adult. Students will share the information by sharing their hand-prints to class. These hand-prints will be made into a collage on one of the walls in the library. The students will be informally assessed through different activities in the school library such as show and tell of book characters, drawing pictures, acting out, etc.  at the end of each month. Students and parents will be encouraged to use the school and public libraries to access materials for this program.