JENNY S. BURKE
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LITERACY  VOLUNTEERS 

11/6/2015

4 Comments

 
Picture
A friend read The Dragon Dreamer to his daughter.
I'm sure she understood every word of it! 


Literacy truly matters. “A student not reading at his or her grade level by the end of the third grade is four times less likely to graduate high school.” (readingpartners.org 10-7-2013) Also, “85 percent of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate, and over 70 percent of inmates in America's prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level, according to BeginToRead.com.” (Huffington Post:  9-6-2013)

We need Head Start and volunteers.  If you can read, you can teach reading. Kids get so excited when their mentor shows up! 

I volunteered at a nearby elementary school and helped out in a classroom. I noticed kids who couldn't read and asked if I could help teach them. This had to be approved. I committed to an hour at a specific time for each kid; twice weekly is good if you can manage this. Students are often assigned but I was allowed to continue working with mine, one-on-one. When I arrived, the child would practically glow; he/she felt special and so did I. Here are my “rules” for teaching literacy:

1. Learn what your students love. Buy them a simple book and tell them they can keep it when they can read it. One young boy loved dinosaurs, so I bought a simple child's book with great pictures. Children love receiving their own books that they can read!  
2. Teach the sounds of the alphabet and how to sound out the words.
3. Give the student a small paper tablet. Write five new words from the book each time you meet. The student’s job is to copy and learn these words. 
4. Enjoy! You're making a difference.

4 Comments
Crispian Thurlborn link
11/7/2015 11:32:38 pm

Good article, Jenny.

I taught in Asia for many, many, years. I've had students of all ages from 3-88. I remember one school that I worked for would have a reading time every day (5 days) where we would read the same book during the week (sometimes two depending upon length).

Each month was themed (Christmas, Autumn, The Sea, etc.) and we would pick authors and build book lists. We would focus on phonics in other classes and connect this to the reading time classes.

I would read for the first few days, and prompt them to tell me what happened next, etc. By the end of the week, each student would read a few sentences in turn (some a whole page). With some of the 5+ classes, I would have them begin to write a sentence and then a few more to go with a drawing that they did of their weekend or holiday. With the 6-7+ classes, we would have them write 8-panel stories based upon the theme that month.

I'm being quite brief here. There was a lot more to it. Remember, these are young children that are learning English as a second language. They learned about books, phonics, and developed a natural understanding of sentence structures in use.

It's nice when your student comes up to you with their own hand-written story and even better when you realise that you helped inspire it.

Reply
Jenny S. Burke
11/8/2015 09:02:14 pm

Thanks, Crispian.
You have excellent ideas, from an excellent teacher! Congratulations on the stories by your students. Literacy is one of the most important skills, and it's immensely satisfying to teach this.

Reply
wanda link
11/11/2015 10:10:45 am

Great pointers! This is so important. I'm glad you wrote about it.

Reply
Jenny S. Burke
11/11/2015 07:00:25 pm

Thank you! This is important, satisfying work.

Reply



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