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Goal

My goal is to increase my students� literacy skills, improve parent participation in my classroom, and promote student centered learning so the students can take leadership roles in their educational journey through poetry. A young learner�s passion for reading develops through constant exposure and opportunities to read and experience a world of words and illustrations that fosters imagination, creativity, and drama, and music while reinforcing my first grade objectives. Through poetry, young readers are given the opportunity to develop a love for literacy, become fluent readers by enhancing their decoding skills and using visual cues to gain a better understanding and comprehension of literacy. As students read and reread poems several times during the week they are able to strengthen vocabulary, oral language, decoding, fluency, and comprehension skills. It is important to expose young readers to a variety of genres that can foster a love of reading and in return help to support young writers. Students at this young stage of development benefit greatly from reading poems daily and as a result they can be given the opportunity to enhance their over all level of literacy development.  

What will be done with my students

Young learners need to be given time to develop decoding skills that will lead to fluency and comprehension skills, which is encouraged and practiced through this project. In addition to poems, several hands-on activities will be included to enhance and expand areas such as art, drama, music, and physical education in order to develop higher-level decoding, fluency and comprehension skills, while enjoying and enhancing other areas of the curriculum. Along with purchasing materials that focus on poetry and its benefits, the grant will also include hands-on activities that will provide the young reader opportunities to develop phonemic awareness, sight words, word families, and vocabulary skills. The students will interact with these activities during independent reading centers through creating art projects to reinforce comprehension of the poem, movement to practice fluency, hands-on activities to increase all literacy skills, and many other opportunities to expand the language arts aspect of each eager student. Additionally, this project will extend the reading process for my learners as writing will be incorporated during centers to give the learner complete exposure to all areas of the language arts component. At the beginning of the week a new poem will be introduced. The poems will reflect a multiplicity of areas and genres and it will be chosen based on specific concepts. On each day that the poem is read, a different literacy concept will be introduced, reviewed or practiced. Fridays the students will illustrate the poem, sight words will be cut out and placed in the sight word envelop attached to the back pocket of their folder and a list of the word families will be added to each student�s Poetry Portfolio. The students will take the Portfolios home for the weekend and read the poems, several times, to family and friends. Corresponding hands-on reading and writing activities will be introduced and completed during independent reading centers. Writing prompts will be chosen based on the concepts and theme of the weekly poem.  

Benefits to my students

Students will develop a strong scaffold for the components of literacy:
PHONEMIC AWARENESS�The knowledge and manipulation of sounds in spoken words.
PHONICS�The relationship between written and spoken letters and sounds.
READING FLUENCY, INCLUDING ORAL READING SKILLS�The ability to read with accuracy, and with appropriate rate, expression, and phrasing.
VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT�The knowledge of words, their definitions, and context.
READING COMPREHENSION STRATEGIES�The understanding of meaning in text.
Additionally, for a stronger home/school connection, the students will take their poetry portfolios home for the weekend and read the poems, several times to family and friends. The parents will have an attached form to their child�s poetry portfolio to � share what he or she noticed� during their child�s poetry reading.  

Budget Narrative

Using an Ipad will create an interactive, mobile learning environment. Students can research poems for our class, create a digital presentation, and upload our creations to the internet for others to benefit from. Poetry books will instill a life long passion for reading and writing literature. The mobile chart stand will be used as a learning center which will allow student the mobility to create and present their poetry. Using learning enhancers and props will make this a hands on experience for my students; therefore, incorporating all learning styles to ensure success. 

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