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First Grade is a paramount year in a child's life-- It is when their reading really starts to take off and they truly start to fall in love with books... or not. Sometimes we forget just how hard it can be to learn to read. Looking at the pictures for clues, blending sounds together to make words, memorizing sight words, reading with fluency, etc., etc., etc. Sometimes, it can be discouraging. That is where listening to books comes into play! From the time children are born, the single most important and powerful thing we can do to get them to love books is read to them. We are so lucky to have the opportunity to teach kids that books can take you places-- that they are magic! You can read about everything and anything in the whole world... you can travel to space one day and to a haunted castle the next! Right now we have an old CD player that is revered in the classroom as the "Listen to Reading" center. And while the player is temperamental and skips more often than not, it is far and away my students' favorite spot to be. They get the opportunity to just sit, relax, and enjoy a book. They don't have to worry about decoding the words or trying to figure out all of the tricky vowel sounds. They just get to be consumed by and enjoy the story for what it is. This is a huge part of how they come to love books, especially for my struggling readers! I would love for each of my students to be able to listen to books every week, but in order for this to become a reality, I need your help!
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