GRANT APPLICATION FOR A LITERACY RICH .
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Grant Committee,.
There is nothing more important that a teacher can do other than instill an ability and love of reading in children. A competent reader has the key to all future learning. Students must be molded at a very young age to see the mystery and beauty of words. To do this we have designed the Literacy Rich Environment described below. The classroom is filled with word/labels in both English and Spanish. This helps the students associate a word with an object and also allows them to see that there is a different word for the same object in another language. As you read each description, picture an environment full of colors, textures and sounds to intrigue young minds:.
Murals cover the walls to create a jungle theme throughout the classroom. The classroom will have a built in sound system that will allow the teacher to play music or nature sounds appropriate to the activities. Brain research indicates that music playing in the background can stimulate cognitive growth and performance.
Audio Center - (located in the library) this is a self-enclosed corner of the classroom with soft flooring and molded plastic trees, a small fountain, birds in natural environments, a large fish aquarium and plenty of small soft chairs and cushions for reading. Books on tape are available for the children to read along to, this encourages children to form meaning form links by matching print with spoken units. In order to encourage use of concept of story to compose story content, especially using sequence and causality, children would be able to record short stories in the audio center to go along with pictures they have drawn in the Fine Arts center.
Maps- the classroom must have many different interactive topographical maps and globes to develop a sense of the global community for the young learners.
Post Office/Writing Center -another center in the classroom would be a bamboo/rattan post office stocked with writing materials and individual post office boxes for the children to develop communications skills/ writing ability.